essay on democracy and human rights

Human Rights and Democracy: An Incompatible or Complementary Relationship?

Introduction

The purpose of human rights is to allow for a transcendence of the nation state in terms of individual entitlement to an enjoyment of rights wherever individuals may find themselves (Landman 2013, 26). However, with respect to the varying philosophical and historical foundations of human rights, the supposed universality of human rights is debatable. States that reliably receive praise for their human rights records include most European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. What these countries have in common is a democratic political system and independent judiciaries that protect citizen rights (Posner 2014, 5). This observable fact would lead us to believe that democratic institutions are necessary for a thorough protection of human rights. However, in a non-cosmopolitan context, the logic of democracy necessitates constructing a barrier between those who belong to the demos and those excluded (Mouffe 2000, 4). This creates the condition for the existence of democratic citizenship rights. It also challenges the supposed universality of human rights, since those excluded from the demos, such as refugees, stateless persons or the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, have no government to protect their supposedly natural rights.

The purpose of this essay is to traverse the tensions between human rights and democracy. It is argued that these tensions originate from the incompatible values upon which human rights and democracy were distinctly founded, the ways in which they are applied and the types of politics that they make possible. Following a short history of the emergence of human rights into the contemporary political consciousness, I explore the conflicts and paradoxes inherent to the human rights/liberalism/democracy nexus. Drawing on the work of political philosopher Chantal Mouffe, I show that there is a bifurcated mutual dependency to this relationship. One the one hand, the appeal to human rights is necessary in order to naturalise the notion of popular sovereignty for the democratic nation state. On the other hand, the democratic logic of constituting the people and bestowing rights is necessary to subvert the tendency towards the abstract universalism that is characteristic of liberal discourse (Mouffe 2000, 44). Finally, against a discussion of the taboo against torture, the notion that the most effective way to protect human rights is through democratic institutions is considered.

A (Brief) History of Human Rights

Some scholars have argued that human rights have a centuries-long history (Ishay 2004). Others perceive them to be a modern legal construction that emerged out of the institution of citizenship rights (Moyn 2012; Posner 2014). Following the Second World War these rights were universalised via a set of agreements that generated the contemporary international regime for the promotion and protection of human rights (Donnelly 2006). In The Last Utopia , legal history scholar Samuel Moyn (2012) argues that human rights only entered the global political consciousness in the 1970s. Moyn claims that at this point in time other kinds of utopianism, such as Communism and national liberation, began to weaken. Human rights suddenly became attractive because they provided a moral discourse and a set of ethical standards superficially above politics, as well as offered a minimalist utopianism that mitigated suffering without seeking to radically transform the world (McLoughlin 2016, 304). During the same decade the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights finally took effect, the Helsinki process began, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, dissident movements across the world began to adopt the language of rights and President Carter proclaimed human rights to be central to US foreign policy (Posner 2014, 19). For the Left, revolutionary aspirations started to be replaced by a global morality that sought to alleviate signs of suffering (McNeilly 2016). Human rights abuses defined authoritarianism, so human rights protection became the logical antidote to such evils. Legal theorist Daniel McLoughlin (2016, 311) argues that in this environment anti-authoritarianism legitimated capitalist liberal democracies by opposing them to a political ‘Other’ that lacked respect for human rights. While some commentators argue that the moral discourse of human rights is “the most we can hope for” (Ignatieff 2001), there are others who challenge this paradigm by contending that we need to develop a radical critique of liberal democratic state power that abandons the ‘good versus evil’ dichotomy (McNeilly 2016; Whyte 2012). This is because human rights in their current liberal form operate to reinforce existing power relations, rather than enabling their takedown.

Human Rights and Citizenship Rights – Two Peas in a Pod?

The 1776 United States Declaration of Independence and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen are widely cited as the provenance of human rights (Landman 2013, 28). For example, human rights scholar Agostinho Reis Monteiro (2014, 373) argues that since both these declarations made the respect for human rights directly connected to the principle of popular sovereignty, these two concepts are therefore “historically, conceptually and politically indissociable.” Indeed, the Rights of Man states that ‘men are born and remain free and equal of right’, which is also a claim echoed in the opening article of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Here, equality and liberty are decreed as “natural entitlements” (Douzinas 2013, 55). However, the Universal Declaration is clear about the basis of universal human rights by stating that “the aim of any political association is to preserve the natural and inalienable rights of man” and that “the principle of all Sovereignty lies essentially with the nation” (Articles 2 & 3 respectively, quoted in Douzinas 2013, 55). Thus, as McLoughlin (2016, 315) argues, the political history of modern liberal democracies is characterised by the gap between “the universalism of the rights of man” and the rift between “white propertied men with full citizenship rights” and “slaves, women, workers, and people of colour” who have been traditionally excluded from the political sphere. By virtue of being allowed to participate in the political, those with citizenship rights are thus able to reify their humanity (Shaap 2013, 4).

Political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1966) interrogates this dynamic between human rights and citizenship rights in her seminal book, The Origins of Totalitarianism . Arendt critiques post-1948 human rights developments for being based on an abstraction of humanity rather than on a viable opportunity for political participation. Arendt argues that human rights only become meaningful when they are recognised in a political society. Thus, for Arendt, more significant than the right to freedom or the right to equality is “the right to have rights.” Ultimately, the problem with the rights of man is that legal rights depend upon membership to a political community. Those excluded from political communities do not have citizenship rights to protect them, so are in reality left with no rights at all. This is premised on the notion that when man and citizen are separated, we recognise that “the world finds nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human” (Arendt 1966, 299). While there has since been a massive growth of the international human rights regime, Arendt’s skepticism concerning the universality of human rights still carries weight. Excluded-citizens may enjoy some human rights, but they ultimately remain the most vulnerable to persecution and expulsion (Nash 2009, 89).

Similar to Arendt, political philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s (1998, 127) analysis of the Rights of Man criticizes its assertion that the rights it affirms are bestowed to both citizen and Man. For Agamben, the universal and abstract image of Man is a modern representation of “bare life.” This metaphor reflects the existence of a human prior to belonging to the political. In Ancient Greek society the conceptual opposition between Man and citizen was expressed in a distinction between citizens who made up the polis, and the slaves, women and children who were excluded (McLoughlin 2016, 312). The modern expression of this classical separation between life and politics manifests itself in a different way. These days, liberal democracies justify their sovereign power on the need to protect the life of their citizens. To do this, modern democratic states now produce more extreme forms of political exclusion that the abstract framework of human rights is unable to address (McLoughlin 2016, 312).

Contemporary democracies are therefore inherently paradoxical because “the territorial borders of a democracy cannot themselves be democratic” (DeGooyer 2014, 101). While nation states profess to grant rights to their citizens based on their common humanity, they also exclude all those located beyond their borders in the name of maintaining national sovereignty and demarcating national identity. In this context, the refugee logically becomes an anomaly of the international system of sovereign states. According to international migration scholar Emma Haddad (2008, 69), refugees are not an indication of this system “going wrong”. Rather, they are “an inherent if unanticipated part of the system.” Citizenship attempts to sort bare life into harmonised territories but in the process some individuals become stuck in between. In this way, the refugee demonstrates a failure of certain governments to protect their citizens and of the state system as a whole, which fails to protect all humans as citizens (Haddad 2008, 69). The refugee also becomes the necessary ‘Other’ so that national citizens of the modern state are able to forge an identity. According to Haddad (2008, 47), the rise of national identity, which attached itself to the system of international relations following the Declaration of Independence and the Rights of Man, has become “the new indicator of allegiance,” while the refugee is “the imagined outsider who allowed the concept of the nation-state to take hold.” Thus, the state and the stateless “are caught in a mutual embrace” (DeGooyer 2014, 101). In light of this analysis, even if the most effective way to protect human rights is through democratic institutions, it seems almost disingenuous if the same human rights cannot be enjoyed by individuals excluded from the demos.

Navigating the Tension between Liberalism, Democracy and Human Rights

Political philosopher Chantal Mouffe’s theorising on the impact that liberalism has on democratic institutions helps to deconstruct the compatibility of human rights and democracy. For Mouffe (2000, 2), democracy is both a form of rule upholding the principle of the sovereignty of the people, as well as a symbolic framework within which this democratic rule is employed. What makes modern Western democracy truly ‘modern’ and ‘Western’ is that this symbolic framework is now informed by the liberal tradition constituted by the rule of law, the respect for individual liberty, protection from oppressive state interference and the defence of human rights. These values form the key tenets of the contemporary Western worldview. Conversely, the democratic tradition emphasises the values of equality, popular sovereignty and a division between the governing and the governed. Indeed, as Amartya Sen (2003) has argued, democracy as manifested through liberalism and the ballot box is a Western construct, while democracy as expressed through ‘public reason’ (in other words, deliberation) is truly universal. Mouffe (2000, 3) claims that there is no necessary connection between liberalism and democracy, “only a contingent historical articulation,” which I have explored in the preceding paragraphs. Nevertheless, there is a widespread assumption that democracy and human rights are inherently compatible (Landman 2013, 7). For Mouffe (2000, 4), this assumption has had the effect of privileging excessive liberalism, whilst neglecting the fact that the legitimacy of liberal democracy remains premised on popular sovereignty.

It thus follows that hegemony of neoliberalism becomes a threat to democratic institutions. States are the main agents in the realisation of democracy and human rights. However, globalising forces have encroached on the state’s ability to freely implement policies, including policies concerning human rights. This phenomenon has been identified as a “democratic deficit” (Mouffe 2000, 15). Here, elected governments lack the power to control neoliberal economic processes and the follow-on effects of major world crises (Cedroni 2012, 261). Indeed, one only has to consider the history of decisions made by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation, which have overwhelmingly served the interests of the Global North without much concern for negative human rights consequences. Neoliberal creeds about the inviolable rights of property, the sweeping virtues of the market and the risks of interfering with its logic have become common sense in liberal-democratic societies. But as Mouffe (2000, 6) explains, the ensuing “democratic deficit” can severely threaten allegiance to democratic institutions by those citizens whose concerns have been excluded from the elite’s political and societal priorities. Indeed, the recent rise of right-wing demagogy in the West seems to eerily confirm Mouffe’s trepidations. Democracy is about compromise and negotiation between disparate opinions, “not zero-sum scorched earth attacks on anyone who does not follow the orthodoxy of one political group” (Shattuck 2016, 182). A commitment to democracy constitutes a never-ending task to ensure popular control and political equality (Charlesworth 2013, 280). Yet, since there is always the threat of “a tyranny of the majority,” liberal democratic institutions should never be taken for granted. As Mouffe (2000, 4) prescribes, this necessitates recognising the tension originating from the inner workings of democracy on the one hand, and liberalism on the other.

The Universal Violation of Human Rights

Through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , states have committed themselves to respecting and safeguarding human rights. Nevertheless, states remain the greatest violators of human rights (Cedroni 2012, 257). However, the moralisation of human rights has led to a shift in attention away from the structural violence triggered by neoliberal capitalism towards more egregious acts of violence (Whyte 2012). In this way, human rights tend to prioritise the rights of individuals, which draws focus away from the rights claims of societies, communities and families (Donnelly 2006, 616). For example, political theorist Robert Meister (2011, 66) has observed the phenomenon of “the humanitarian melodrama,” which is the enjoyment of the moral feeling we get through witnessing the pain of bodies. For Meister, physical pain is always perceived as an egregious violation of human rights. However, the same is often not said of other types of violence such as abuses along the supply chain or mass incarceration (Whyte 2012). For example, Amnesty’s 1976 report that documented abuses in Argentina, which contributed to the organisation being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, did not comment on the growing poverty or the cutback of social welfare programs (as was the policy linchpin of the junta government) (Whyte 2012). Indeed, the international human rights regime is not a complete solution for social justice or human emancipation (Donnelly 2006, 616). In theory, this is unproblematic since different ethical, legal, and political practices need to come together for the functioning of an effective society. In practice, however, human rights today often exclude larger emancipatory visions and can even have morally perverse unintended consequences (Donnelly 2006, 616). For example, the way in which torture is construed as the ultimate human rights violation has the effect of limiting the ways we conceptualise violence and rights violations at a broader structural level (Kelly 2011, 328). In this way, the pathologising of torture has reduced the politics of human rights to a discussion about the need to limit gratuitous pain, rather than, for instance, the collective redistribution of wealth (Kelly 2011, 328).

This trend of sensationalising overt pain has inadvertently led to a pernicious form of torture (Kelly 2011, 328). Far from being the leftovers of our pre-civilised past, or a custom reserved for authoritarian regimes, political scientist Darius Rejali (2007) argues that there is a particular type of torture practiced by liberal democracies, namely what he has dubbed “clean tortures.” These are techniques that are designed to leave no traces. Such techniques include: Tasers; extremely hot or cold showers; refrigerated cells; sleep deprivation; and the infliction of noise (Rejali 2007, 553-7 for complete list). Rejali (2007, 39) links the development of clean torture techniques to the corresponding development of democratic monitoring, both domestic and international, that are intended to prevent torture. Rejali (2007, 390) argues that it is no coincidence that clean tortures began to spread rapidly in the 1970s, right about the same time when Amnesty was raising awareness of the significance of torture as a human rights issue. This increased sensitivity to signs of pain in our collective conscience has thus had the effect of perpetuating a type of torture available to democracies that is arguably more insidious given that it is harder to see.

In The Twilight of Human Rights legal scholar Eric Posner (2014, 112) argues, that even if human rights at the international level were enforceable, there is little reason to believe that individual human rights would promote the wellbeing of all people in a diverse collection of countries “where the interests, values, and needs of the populations cannot be captured in a simple list of rights.” Consider the rise of living standards and advancement of economic rights in China over the last 30 years. Hundreds of millions of people have been brought out of poverty. Posner (2014, 91) suggests that given the lack of democratic culture in China, and the extraordinary political turmoil that existed there until rather recently, there would be a significant risk to the management of the economy (and even societal peace) if China were to suddenly comply with civil and political rights. Liberal democracies run into the mirror image of this predicament. Democratic legislatures are often reluctant to formulate laws in compliance with the cosmopolitan norms of human rights. In the example of counter-terrorism measures in the US and UK, courts have repeatedly judged legislation intended to allow arbitrary detention unlawful. In any case, governments remain unwilling to respect well-established international human rights norms (Nash 2009, 99). As elected representatives, politicians are often unwilling to risk appearing soft on those who are perceived to threaten the state’s safety. This broad trend in contemporary politics shows that even in democratic societies there are contexts in which human rights are simply not popular (Nash 2009, 99). As we can see, it is thus impossible to separate the world into “good democratic states” that protect human rights and “bad authoritarian states” that are the biggest violators (Posner 2014, 121).

Conclusions

This essay has sought to navigate some tensions between human rights and democracy. It was argued that these tensions originate from the conflicting values upon which human rights and democracy were distinctly founded, the ways in which they are applied and the kinds of politics that they make room for. The careful juggling between the preservation of democratic institutions and the protection of human rights will thus remain shaky, even in the best of times. These tensions have risen out of the rift between liberal democracy’s conceptualisation of the universal Man and the national citizen, or rather, “the real beneficiary of rights” (Douzinas 2013, 56). Since rights form the basis upon which people are allocated into rulers, ruled, and excluded, it is hard to imagine a utopia in which human rights exist for those who do not belong to a demos (Douzinas 2013, 59).

This essay has also considered the broader shift in contemporary political discourse that interprets human rights as a moral story of ‘good versus evil.’ This is a false dichotomy, since states fall along a continuum of human rights compliance. Many states with authoritarian governments are responsive to the needs and interests of their populations and do protect the more significant human rights just as well as democratic governments are able to (Dryzek 2016, 362). This discussion is important because we ought to interrogate whether the human rights project epitomised by Amnesty International is the best solution to the banal lack of freedom, justice and equality experienced by people in all parts of the contemporary world.

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Written by: Lillian Carson Written at: The University of Melbourne Written for: Course: Human Rights; Degree: Master of International Relations Date written: November 2016

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The Relationship Between Democracy and Human Rights

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3 Rights, Democracy, and Law

Published: December 2001
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This chapter discusses the main issues of debate which surround the question of whether or not it is desirable to seek to protect fundamental rights in constitutional documents. The potential juristic significance of this exercise, an exercise in what might be called the positivisation of natural rights, is examined. The chapter also assesses whether the institutional protection of designated rights can lead to more effective, enlightened, and responsive modes of governing. The democratic justification for the legal order is underpinned by the principle of popular sovereignty whereby a body of free and equal citizens comes together, generally through a representative assembly, to enact rules to promote the general welfare. This democratic form of accountability of governors to citizens ensures that the laws reflect the will of the people. This chapter also considers the reconciliation of rights and democracy, the foundations of rights claims and democracy claims, liberalism and republicanism, nature of the legal order, and architectonic principles and local politics.

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The Universality of Human Rights Essay (Critical Writing)

Human’s rights as the attribute of society, the four schools of thoughts: observing the perspectives, natural school: the natural course of events, protest school: opposing the situation, deliberative school: agreeing upon the basics, discourse school: when it is the right time to talk, multiculturalism in different forms, human rights and linguistic diversity, reference list.

In contrast to the other institutions that suggest a single form of the notion existing in the given society, the area of human rights allows to switch the shapes of the very notion of human rights according to the sphere it is applied to. In spite of the fact that the core idea of the human rights remains the same, the form it takes can vary depending on the field of use. The universality of human rights allows them to get into every single part of people’s lives, and this is a subject that needs further exploration.

The way the human rights are interpreted now does not differ from the basic principles set by the founders of democracy. Throughout the centuries, the main idea of human rights remained the same, claiming every single person to have the package of rights that are to be inherent and be an integral part of living a full life of a free man. Set long time ago and representing the range of freedoms that have been proclaimed since the times of the French Revolution, these right still speak of the democracy in motion, demanding the constitutional law and the recognition of a man’s liberty. The situation has not changed much since then, the established rights for life, education, voting and freedom of speech, remain the same.

However, there have been some amendments that presupposed certain improvements, but the basics were left untouched. Nowadays, almost every country can claim that it suggests a full range of the necessary rights and freedoms to its citizens. The democracy principles spread all around the world, and the modern society seems to have all the attributes to be called democratic for recognizing people’s right and freedoms in full. However, it is still curious how the law that outlines the most important points of human rights can convey the idea, and the way this idea can switch its shape as it transgresses from one sphere of analytical and philosophical thinking into another one.

Dembour (2006) defines human rights as the most obvious things that should actually be taken for granted, without clarifying them in such a detailed manner in the set of laws, “One claims a human right in the hope of ultimately creating a society in which such claims will be no longer necessary” (p. 248). The existence of the four schools of human right can explain the fact of these rights switching their shape so suddenly and with such a scale. There four schools consider human rights in absolutely different light. The ideas of different scholars may be considered from the point of view of those four schools of thought. A lot of scholars dwelling upon human rights in the relation to multiculturalism and language refered themselves to one of the Dembour’s schools.

One of the most well-known schools is probably the natural school that considers human rights as they are given, in plain. Presupposing that human rights are something that one has been granted since the day of birth, the followers of this school suggest that the subject under discussion can be valued from the point of view of the plain nature. Eriksen (1996) supports this idea dwelling upon the fact that different nations can exist together on the basis of understanding this idea. Taylor (1994) also supports this idea claiming people with different understanding of human rights may respect each other and perceive them as they are.

The idea that this philosophy conveys is that a person’s rights are the incorporation of the laws of nature and it presupposes that people should act according to their inner understanding of their rights and freedoms. This theory is close to idealism, which is supported by Donelly (2003) who is sure that people have rights “simply because one is a human being” (p. 10).

As opposed to natural school of thought, protest school of thought believes that human rights cannot be considered as a universal notion because they are limited to such concepts as morality, dignity, and moral integrity (Dembour, 2006, p. 236). In particular, the supporters of this concept find some political and intellectual inferences related to human rights. They believe that universality of human rights fails to consider the dignity and individuality of each person. More importantly, the theory suggests that human rights impose a kind of responsibility on each individual.

If to consider human freedom as one of inherent components of human rights, one should be aware of the fact that all freedoms enjoyed by individuals should be deserved first. Indeed, a person takes all existing freedoms for granted finding it unnecessary to fight for them. They agree with the assumption that freedom is an innate right of humans (Denbour, 2006, p. 237). This position also reveals that illusionary possession of the fundamental freedoms should be protected by law.

This school of thoughts can be interpreted through visions and outlooks of Varennes (2007). In particular, his point of view is narrowed to the idea that language right should protected on equal basis with human rights because it reveals their identity and responsibility for their culture and country. Hence, Varennes (2007) states, “…the use of a language in private activities can be in breach of existing international human rights such as the rights to private and family right” (p. 117).

Drawing the line between the protest scholars, language right should be protected by law as well. Such a position explains Varennes’ affiliation to this theoretical framework. The problem of linguistic justice is also considered by Patten and Kymlicka (2003) and Wei (2009) who believe that should be linguistic justice because it is an inherent component of human rights.

As compared with natural and protest theoretical framework whose primary concerns are based on a strong belief in human rights, deliberate school of thought are fully loyal to this concept. They conceive human rights as an idealistic conception that exists regardless of human experience. According to this school, “human rights are thus no more than legal and political standards; they not moral, and certainly not religious, standards” (Dembour, 2006, p. 248). Therefore, the limited perception of human rights impels the scholars to believe that this phenomenon is nothing else but adjudication.

While analyzing different ideas and positions, Dembour (2006) concludes that deliberate theorists find human rights beyond political and legal dependence. Rather, they compare them with religion, stating that it is a universal notion existing outside the context of morality, law and politics. Due to the fact that human rights are perceived as something secular, deliberate school of thought subjects this conception to idolatry.

Following the main concepts of deliberate school, Aikman (1995) provides his own vision of linguistic diversity and cultural maintenance that should be preserved irrespective of laws and politics because it is more connected with social needs and socio-cultural environment in the country. More importantly, Boumann (1999) provides the separatist vision of linguistic rights in correlation of his position to its universality. In particular, the scholar beliefs that multiculturalism and human right should be reevaluated and be more connected with ethnic and religious identity, but not political and legal perspectives.

Although Biseth (2008) seems to be more radical in his vision of multiculturalism, the scholar also represents deliberate school of though believing that linguistic diversity is inevitable due to diversity in culture and cultural heritage. In particular, Biseth (2008) stands for equality and universality of human right with regard to linguistic right, which should be perceived as something integral and inherent to a human. In general all the above-presented scholars agree with the necessity to perceive linguistic right as something independent from politics and law.

Dwelling upon discourse school of thought and relating it to the human rights, it is possible to states that Dembour (2006) defined the scholars who belonged to this school as those who, “not only insist that there is nothing natural about human rights, they also question the fact that human rights are naturally good” (p. 251). The representatives of this school are sure that those human rights exist only because people talk about them. Moreover, Dembour (2006) believes that if the notion of human rights does not exist, so there is nothing to fight for and to protect.

Koenig and Guchteneire (2007) believe that due to high rate of migration and international communication human rights became international and there is nothing to discourse about. It is possible to refer Holmarsdottir (2009) to this school of thought as his ideas are closely connected to the ideas presented by Dembour (2006). Holmarsdottir (2009) is sure that there are no human rights which have been given to people since their birth. Only the government can give people their rights. He writes, “a government is considered as having as exclusive right to make and implement policy in the interest of all the people” (Holmarsdottir, 2009, p. 223).

All these ideas and perspectives may be easily considered from the point of view of multiculturalism and language problem in the concept of human rights.

It is important to remember that different cultures presuppose in some cases absolutely dissimilar norms and rules. In this case, human rights policies are not an exception. But, there is the tendency that many counties live in the multicultural society, so different norms and rules should collaborate and be combined. But, it is impossible to provide in the real society. Aikman (1995) states that many indigenous peoples struggle for the right to use their languages on their territory.

The multiculturalism has entered the society of Harakmbut Amazon people so deeply that these people have to fight for the opportunity to use their native language. It is natural that the countries with the same problems create the Declarations where the status of their country is stated as bicultural and it allows people to use their native language. Thus, indigenous peoples have created the draft of the declaration which allows them to use their traditions and culture in the multicultural society they are made to live in. The text of the draft states that peoples who are influenced by other cultures can “revitalise, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, philosophies, writing system and literature” (Aikman, 1995, p. 411).

Baumann (1999) is sure that people can never understand the main idea of multiculturalism and can still see the problem there until they do not rethink the problem. According to Baumann (1999), the multiculturalism should become global “just as environmentalism and feminism need to be global to succeed” (p. 32). Thus, human rights will be followed and there will not be a problem if the whole world is involved into multicultural society. The author also states that the problems in the society are mostly solved by the civil rights which exclude foreigners. Is not it the violation of the principles of the multiculturalism (Baumann, 1999)?

The problems in the multicultural society became extremely debatable. The appearance of different politics within the problem makes it possible to become politically neutral for most people. Thus, the politics of equal dignity is based on the principle that people on the whole Planet should be equally respected. Thus, their human rights should be respected as well. This politics creates the universal human potential. The main idea of this potential is that people should be respected, no matter what ethnical group they belong to or what language they speak. Still, the problem of the relations between people in the multicultural society remains unsolved (Taylor, 1994, p. 41).

While many people dwell upon the importance of the multiculturalism and the culture globalization, Halla (2009) states that globalization of culture has absolutely negative impact on the whole society. It is important to understand that the multiculturalism in the whole world eliminates the uniqueness of the peoples and their cultures. Halla (2009) is sure that multiculturalism reduces people from using their rights to live in the country they were born in. It is really important for elite to maintain multiculturalism in the world society as in this case people are required to buy the western products and goods. On the one hand, the culture globalization has a positive effect (especially in education and in the right of choice). On the other hand, the problem is extremely sharp for small peoples who cannot resist cultural globalization and lose their unique qualities (Halla, 2009).

Dwelling upon multiculturalism and human rights, Eriksen (1996) uses the example of Mauritius. The religious, language and cultural diversity of this community is rather varied and difficult, still people in Mauritius are given an absolute freedom of which religion they may follow (there are four main religions on the island, three of which are subdivided into numerous sects), which subjects to study at school (most core subjects are options, so students are not obligated to learn the things they do not want or do not like due to their cultural or religious preferences), and which language they want to speak. Even though that the main language on the island is English, the cultural languages are spoken and supported by the society (Eriksen, 1996). Thus, the main idea of the said is that multiculturalism which does not violate human rights is the multiculturalism where the peoples with different cultures live on the same territory, but there are no quarrels and problems in the cultural question.

There are a lot of different forms how multiculturalism may be considered. Still, many people understand this notion as the impact of one culture under another one when the smaller should resists. This understanding is correct as in most cases it is so. Here is one dominant culture which influences the whole society and other nationalities should submit to the requirements provided by other nations. This form of multiculturalism is wrong. People should not be submitted to somebody only because they are stronger or are considered to be more developed. Culture is not an economy or politics, this human facility should not be measured with anything. Thus, if some people have a culture, it should be protected and no one should violate the rights of others calling this multiculturalism.

Still, there is a better form of multiculturalism which is practiced on small islands all over the world. This form of multiculturalism is like a rainbow or a salad, as opposed by Eriksen (1996). The ingredients and elements are in one and the same ‘society’, they are gathered together, but they do not try to take up each other. Living on one and the same territory people do not impose their rights and cultures on others, they just learn to live together, and this is the form of the multiculturalism which should be spread worldwide, when human rights are not violated and human uniqueness is not spoiled.

Without any doubts, the idea of human rights has already touched upon numerous aspects of life: people want to know more about their rights, they want to take as many steps as possible to improve the conditions under which they have to live, and, finally, they want to understand the main idea of their rights and define possibilities. The idea of human rights and its connection to linguistic diversity seems to be a powerful aspect to evaluate the chosen theme from. There is a certain link between language rights and human rights (Varennes, 2007).

It is usually wrong to believe that only some groups of people may have their language rights because any person has his/her own language rights, and those people whose rights are violated by the government in some way have to re-evaluate their status and their possibilities. There were many attempts to advocate language rights, and one of them was supported by the political movement in the middle of the 1960s (Wei, 2000). Still, the question concerning rights remains to be open, and a variety of discussions may take place.

Nowadays, the idea of linguistic diversity is narrowed to several languages which are defined as those with some kind of future. In fact, the power of linguistic diversity is great indeed as any language is considered to be a factor that may contribute to cultural diversity that influences the development of human rights. Linguistic diversity seems to be a serious challenge for the vast majority of democratic polities because language is usually regarded as “the most fundamental tool of communication”; this is why even if the “minorities are not in themselves bearers of collective rights, the transnational legal discourse of human rights does de-legitimize strong policies of language homogenization and clearly obliges states to respect and promote linguistic diversity” (Koenig & Guchteneire, 2007, p. 10).

So, linguistic diversity is the source of controversies, which may be developed on the political background, influence considerably human rights in various contexts, and predetermine “the stability and sustainability of a wide range of political communities” (Patten & Kymlicka, 2003, p. 3). Still, this aspect has to be regulated accordingly because it has a huge impact on the development of the relations between different people. For example, a number of politically motivated conflicts are connected with language rights which have to be established separately from other human rights.

And even the increase of inequalities depends on language rights and prevents the development of appropriate society. In case language rights and other aspects which are based on linguistic diversity do not move in accordance with people’s demands and interests, there is a threat that people can make use of their own assumptions about language policies (Holmarsdottir, 2009), and these assumptions can hardly be correct. However, Biseth (2009) admits that diversity in languages as well as competence in these languages plays an important role in social development, this is why they cannot be neglected but elaborated.

People suffer from a variety of limitations which are based on human inabilities to use their own languages but the necessity to use the official language. Such restrictions lead to people’s inabilities to get appropriate education in accordance with their interests, to participate in political life of the country a person lives in, and even to ask for justice when it is really necessary.

This is why another important aspect that has to be evaluated is how the chosen human rights perspective may influence the promotion of linguistic justice and diversity that is widely spread nowadays. Some researchers say that linguistic rights have to become one of the basic types of the existed human rights. Speakers, who use a dominant language, and linguistic majorities find the existed linguistic human rights an excellent opportunity to express their ideas and their demands. Still, there are many people, the representatives of linguistic minorities, who cannot support the idea of linguistic human rights because only the smallest part of the existed languages has the official status.

It happens that some individuals undergo unfair attitude or are suppressed by the majorities because of the language they use. Taking into consideration this fact, it is possible to say that wrongly introduced linguistic human rights may negatively influence other human rights including the political representation. The outcome of such discontents and misunderstanding is as follows: people are in need of appropriate improvements and formulations which may consider cultural heritage, educational demands, and freedom of speech.

In general, the evaluation of the human rights perspective on linguistic diversity helps to comprehend that there are many weak points in the already existed system that influences and manages a human life. People are eager to create some rules, requirements, and obligations to follow a particular order and to develop appropriate relations. Still, linguistic diversity continues developing and changing human lives. And the main point is that some researchers and scientists still find this diversity an important aspect of life that cannot be changed, and some people cannot understand the importance of this diversity as it considerably restricts human rights.

In conclusion, the question of human rights is constantly discussed in the modern world. There are different opinions on the problem, some people state that human rights even do not exist as the notion (Dembour, 2006), still, most people assure that human rights exist as the duties of the society (Donnelly, 2003). Moreover, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (UN, 1993) dwells upon the very notion of human rights and the system of international human rights which relate people to the multicultural society where those rights should be followed. The problem stands sharp in the education where students, desiring to study their own languages have to learn others. Moreover, the impact of the dominant language is rather damaging on the others who exists in one society.

It is really important to remember that living in the multicultural society and trying to adopt the cultures and traditions of other dominant nations, many peoples ruin their uniqueness, they become ordinary, forgetting their roots. As the same time, the process of culture globalization leads people to the universality of human rights. This step may be significant in preventing human rights violation in the society.

Aikman, S. (1995). Language, literacy and bilingual education. An Amazon people’s strategies for cultural maintenance. International Journal of Educational Development, 15 (4), 411-422.

Baumann, G. (1999). The Multicultural Riddle: Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identities . New York: Routledge. Web.

Biseth, H. (2009). Multilingualism and Education for Democracy. International Review of Education, 55 (1), 5-20.

Dembour, M. B. (2006). Who believes in human rights? Reflections on the European Convention . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Donnelly, J. (2003). Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice . Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Eriksen, T. H. (1996). Multiculturalism, Individualism and Human rights: Romanticism:The Enlightenment and Lesson from Mauritius. In R.Wilson (ed. ) Human rights, Culture and Context, Anthropological Perspective (pp. 49-69). London, Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press 47-17.

Holmarsdottir, H. (2009). A tale of two countries: language policy in Namibia and South Africa. In H. Holmarsdottir and M. O’Dowd (Eds.). Nordic Voices: Teaching and Researching Comparative and international Education in the Nordic Countries (pp. 221-238). Amsterdam: Sense.

Koenig, M., & Guchteneire, P. d. (2007). Political Governance and Cultural Diversity. In M. Koenig & P. d. Guchteneire (Eds.), Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (pp. 3-17). Aldershot: Ashgate.

Patten, A., & Kymlicka, W. (2003). Introduction: Language rights and political theory: Context, issues and approaches. In W. Kymlicka & A. Patten (Eds.), Language rights and political theory (pp. 1-51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, C. (1994). The Politics of Recognition. In C. Taylor & A. Gutmann (Eds.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (pp. 25-73). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

UN (1993). Vienna Declaration and programme of Action . Web.

Varennes, F. d. (2007). Language Rights as an Integral Part of Human Rights – A Legal Perspective. In M. Koenig & P. d. Guchteneire (Eds.), Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (pp. 3-17). Aldershot: Ashgate.

Wei, Li (2000). Dimensions of bilingualism. In Li Wei (Ed.), The Bilingualism Reader (pp. 3-25). London: Routledge.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Universality of Human Rights." April 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-universality-of-human-rights/.

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Essay on Human Rights: Samples in 500 and 1500

Updated on
Dec 9, 2023

Essay writing is an integral part of the school curriculum and various academic and competitive exams like IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. It is designed to test your command of the English language and how well you can gather your thoughts and present them in a structure with a flow. To master your ability to write an essay, you must read as much as possible and practise on any given topic. This blog brings you a detailed guide on how to write an essay on Human Rights , with useful essay samples on Human rights.

This Blog Includes:

The basic human rights, 200 words essay on human rights, 500 words essay on human rights, 500+ words essay on human rights in india, 1500 words essay on human rights, importance of human rights, essay on human rights pdf.

What are Human Rights

Human rights mark everyone as free and equal, irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion and nationality. The United Nations adopted human rights in light of the atrocities people faced during the Second World War. On the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Its adoption led to the recognition of human rights as the foundation for freedom, justice and peace for every individual. Although it’s not legally binding, most nations have incorporated these human rights into their constitutions and domestic legal frameworks. Human rights safeguard us from discrimination and guarantee that our most basic needs are protected.

Did you know that the 10th of December is celebrated as Human Rights Day ?

Before we move on to the essays on human rights, let’s check out the basics of what they are.

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Democracy and the Human rights Essay Example

Pages: 10 (2740 words)
Published: August 10, 2016
Type: Essay

Human rights refer to the fundamental rights to life, the pursuit of happiness and the liberty of life. Thus this refers to the complete freedom one expects from their governments and the authorities that protect them from their daily lives. The human rights are considered the individual possessions and are the best for any individual in the whole world. The human rights should not be confused with democracy which is defined as a government by the people whereby the supreme power is vested in them, ie the same people and is used by the people or the interchangeably by their agents directly under the electoral systems.

Thus, democracy needs to be tied together with the human rights and not the opposite. There is the concept of democratisation which refers t

o the express way in which there is a clear way and the direction of changes as the political movements way of changing things which can be used in any given system not only for the worst managed system but the good ones too. Again there is the concept of democracy and these refers to the uncontested, theories of democracy which may involve contested claims about the value of democracy and how this is realized in a good and properly managed institution atmosphere.

Democracy has past through a lot of the bad and the good sides. It has led to many shading their blood in the name of helping them achieve a world full of the democratically Free State and countries. Citizens of any country worldwide need to enjoy the freedom of expression together with a free and democratic society. The rights

for any individual need not be tempered with because the individuals need these rights in order to be free from any wrong doing and engage in any activity that requires them to be free and just.

In order for these individuals to be free, there need to be the freedom of expression and the speech in all manner of ways and the states. These rights needs to be widespread to other areas and helps the majority of the people to get to understand and make their impacts known. People when they are born, they have the rights to associations and the rights to play study and change the world through their activities that are conducive to the society and may not make them wanted for law breaking purposes. Individuals in any society may be free when their government are not free.

This is because the individuals may have a right to play but their own government does not have a right to play within its laws or rather the constitutions. This then affects the individual’s rights and freedom of expression as noted by (Teeple 2004) Effects of Citizens on Human rights The citizens of the any particular country may have their individual’s effects on the human rights situations in their own country. This they do out of their ignorance and sometimes the bad behaviour associated with affecting others right and their free will.

This in turn does not help them either but is a conversant way of ensuring that the democracy in any nation is upheld and is the best in the whole world. The United States constitution does not give the

freedom of religion or the freedom of the press. It thus does not want the congress to be found passing the laws interfering with the freedom religion, speech and the peaceful assembly. Thus the people of the United States are free to be associated with any church and also free to the press but its not one of their fundamental laws associated with their citizens.

This explains why the individuals may be free but their state or country may not. This one example of the free people and not free country is justified. Citizens of the democratic society live through the lives with the hope that, if they speak the truth, democracy is achieved through by all means. They believe that if only the truth is told, then they will have achieved their democratic gains and made significant steps ahead. Politicians and Human rights The human rights laws are mostly affected by the politicians who come with there usual style and destruct the human rights policy.

This is indeed the point of the matter at hand. Human rights abuses are so much caused by the majority of the people who are subject to the rules of the company. The politicians are the first to undergo the human rights abuses. An example for this is the recent arrest of Charles Taylor a strong and worst leader of the recent times. He was involved in the formulation of the basic bad laws and was also a politician who helped bring the human rights work in the republic of the Liberia go to the dogs.

This is one person who has extended the rule of

the and examples of the human rights rules and principles. Charles Taylor is still the person who killed many people and caused the majority of the people of the republic of Liberia to wage war on one another. He is said to have masterminded the execution of the majority of the Citizens and the outright killing of the majority of the people. He is said to have been the chief financier of the all the massacre of the largest provinces in the republic of Liberia.

This has made him to booked for the cases of human rights abuse and he is likely to be jailed after that. Another example is then the genocide in the Rwanda republic, here millions of citizens were taken and killed for no reason at all. They were said to have been taken through the toughest and most brutal execution to ever have happen in the republic of the Rwanda. These people are said to have been cut with hoes and some beheaded while their families watched in despair and had no option but to watch as their only remaining parents were being killed.

This happen in a span of so few years and many of the people were massacred. Many of the people are still not recovered but have undergone their eventual counselling in order to fully recover and be back to construction of their own beloved country. There has been genocide from major African societies among the African communities. These genocides are manifested by the very politicians who are elected by the people and are made answerable to them. But the politicians have achieved nothing from doing

nothing to the society and this has labelled them as affecting the human rights worldwide.

These issues and the actual killing of the innocent people like the example of the recent Kenyan political crisis that left many people killed, maimed and some beheaded in the name of ethnic cleasing. This was said to have been funded by the very same politicians who are seeking the blessings of their people again in order to help them grow politically. Another example still comes from the Zimbabwe country which has seen most of its resources blatantly used by the one Robert Mugabe the president who has served as the president for the last 24 years.

This president has refused to give the young generation hand in the country to enable them rule. This is witnessed by the blatant use of the public resources during the campaigns an still up to this moment; the elections results are not yet announced. These are a show of the abuse of the human rights because the people on the ground have been believed to have voted for the opposition candidate Mr Morgan. Military and the Human rights The United Nations has a full unit of the human rights which encompasses the universal declaration of the Human rights.

The international lawyers consider all the universal declaration as having all the traditional universal law establishing a common basis on which to judge the nations basing on their abuse of the human rights. The greater international community has started to exert pressure on the articulating these norms and codifying the principles of the human rights. The military have been used severally for

the abuses of the human rights by the whole countries in the whole world.

This has many examples such as the United States that used it military power to unjustly kill and maim the peaceful citizens of Iraq republic. The United States military have been given orders to kill in Iraq and this they have done with due order from above. This is one example of the human rights abuse and has been infringing on the well being of the citizens of the Iraq regime. The police in the Kenyan situation were ordered to kill any innocent citizens who were on the opposing side of the current government found on the streets of the major towns in Kenya situation.

This again is the violations of the human rights on the Kenya citizens of the opposing side of the political of supremacy. Market economy and the democracy Market affects democracy in many ways that anybody will ever know. Democracy is hard to be felt in a market situation where the market is an independent state. Thus if the market is an independent state, it will not overlook the democratic gains made earlier on. This because the market is the people who come together for the good of the buying and selling things within an area or location.

Democracy controls the market through the following ways; it may help in establishing the good electoral system, creates public options and creates the organized pressure that may be needed for the systematic help that is required whenever we have any pressure issue amid any democratically elected government. Therefore the government must in control of the movements

of the people and the goods. The market removes the central role from the politicians to the public and these helps in the management of the democratically elected people and the good of the people.

This has helped shape the democracy and built good alliances among the whole people in the country. If the market is free, it accelerates the economic and social status of every individual work and the sustains the economic outlook of the individuals and the country. This free market scenario is expanded the good democraticy and made available what was not initially available. Market differences undermine the principles of the democratic policies and are hard for the economic and the political choices.

The individualised decisions are prioritised over the collective decisions. The effective government helps justify and protect the liberties of every individual. It also widens the facets of the good democracy and opens ways in which the democracy can grow and hence foster good economic reforms that may help the government to realize the fruits economic unity as noted by Farmers (2003). Under the conclusion of the liberalism, if the state owns and controls property, it may deny the same property to the individuals and make them look like the bad people while they are not.

It may also deny the citizens the opportunity to their livelihood and the freedom of expression which may be a big problem in the long run to entire cohort of the citizens. Again the socialised property may deny the citizens their property and the nature of the being. This may again deny them the right to associate and the right to

freedom of assembly. The market belongs to the civil society but we should whenever defining the democratic rules and the democracy, we should not exclude the term civil society from the market situation.

Market economy also affects the democracy through it be taken in most cases as an activity which is private. This makes the growth of the market be solely answerable to the government of the day and this prohibits the democratic space available for the growth of the democratic values. So, again, the market serves as a state for the electoral contest and this advances the democratic gains way ahead of the other gains. Thus market freedoms and the political freedoms are mutually supportive of one another and this helps the market and the whole majority of the people appreciate good democracy.

The rules of the laws as applies to any other regions, it may also be used in the markets and the democratic ways. Thus all markets should have the rules and all the democratic values should too have the rules that govern them through the electoral process. The sovereignty of the all consumers and the voters lie in the rules that govern the whole markets and the democracy worldwide. The market economy is necessarily for long term growth and this is a good move because it helps mend the many fences against the democracy. Liberalism and the democracy

Liberalism has the foundations and a very significant constraint upon the democracy of the whole world today. Liberty should be one thing with the democracy. Their relationships should be the one with the mutual necessity and the source of the

tension. Classical liberalism has proved to be quite indispensable to the maintenance of the democracy at the national level. But though liberalism is a constraint to democracy, it has been historically possible for the liberals to provide for the necessarily and the constrain of the democratic process.

Liberalism and the democracy thus, do not help much but it serves us the effective tool to evaluate the prospective work of the democratic process and the young democratic values of any given country. Though not all individual’s rights are the democratic rights. The rights of the individual’s citizen’s to meet regularly and collectively in order to exercise their own rights of associations. Democratic rights are the individual’s rights which are necessary to get the secure and the popular control of the whole process.

The liberal democracy has been through the successive struggles between itself and the various types of the democracies the world over. The extend of this and its form has been a point of debate for the variety of the liberalists and the demacrats. Therefore democracy has been derailed mostly in effect to the larger women folk. The women who have complained of the exclusion from the citizenship have argued that, the grounds under which that took effect are not as viable and have led to disunity in the family situations and made life hard for the whole family.

The liberalist thought that the ability to have any property makes you a citizens and nothing else. But in a spirited move, the democrats disputed that fact and opted for registration and the outright naturalisation. The capacity for individuals to have the responsibilities

to make decisions about ones own plan of life were made basing on the fact that, all adults are equal and they have their rights the same way through. Over the years, there have been struggles between the liberalists and the democrats that have not reached any conclusive measures.

But the one thing that comes out of this struggle is the extension of the suffrage and the kind of the social agenda that has been politically controlled over the years. There the socialists and the social democracy which argues against the wealth management can influence access to the political resources and make this life harder for those people who politicise and lastly, it prevents their access to the public decision making which in turn is refusing to give them the right to freedom of the assembly.

Women have also again argued for the labour divisions as not good for the family growth. This has hampered the family equality and changed the whole imaginations of people and the decisions making process. Whereas the liberalists have given us a very well calculated assumption, they haven’t justified it and this remains as one of the biggest and greatest challenge of these time.

Conclusions

The violation of the human rights situations is widespread and is moving from the industrialised countries down those the developing countries. This has an aspect of reducing the rights of any free individuals in the whole world. The situation as it is currently, whereby there individuals with massive human rights cases on their heads should be either be prosecuted and arraigned in courts and taken to prisons. Again democracy does in

no mean way support the human rights which are fundamental for the well being of any society.

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Introduction : human rights and democracy in the Gambia : Is the Gambia a democratic state?
1. Africa in a changing world : the major governance crisis in West Africa and the way forward
2. Liberal democracy and governance in Africa : a brief critique
3. Press freedom and democratic governance in the Gambia : a rights-based approach
4. The judiciary in governance in the Gambia : the quest for autonomy in the second republic
5. International human rights and the laws of nations : a brief analysis of the philosophical foundations, basic premises and historical background of human rights from the conventional and Islamic perspectives
6. Law faculties, ethics and legal professionalism : a contemporary African perspective
7. Harnessing traditional governance institutions to improve governance in West Africa
the case study of the Gambia
Conclusion : towards Arab-African integration in the struggle against western hegemony and imperialism : a critical perspective.

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