Description
Scitus Academics LLC The Power of Human Rights by D P Singh Suri
The concept of human rights implies that basic rights belong to every
member of the human race. From the moral perspective, human rights refer
simply to the morally justifiable claims that every human should be able to
make upon society. Human rights are a product of a philosophical debate
that has raged for over two thousand years within the European societies
and their colonial descendants. This argument has focused on a search for
moral standards of political organization and behavior that is independent
of the contemporary society. In other words, many people have been
unsatisfied with the notion that what is right or good is simply what a
particular society or ruling elite feels is right or good at any given time. This
unease has led to a quest for enduring moral imperatives that bind societies
and their rulers over time and from place to place. Fierce debates raged
among political philosophers as these issues were argued through. While a
path was paved by successive thinkers that lead to contemporary human
rights, a second lane was laid down at the same time by those who resisted
this direction. The emergence of human rights from the natural rights
tradition did not come without opposition, as some argued that rights could
only from the law of a particular society and could not come from any natural
or inherent source. The human rights violations in the 21st century seem
inexhaustible. In the Syrian civil war, sarin gas killed many civilians, with the
government the likely culprit, and both the government and rebels
executed captured enemy combatants. In the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, rebel groups forced hundreds of children to serve as child soldiers.
Religious minorities are often persecuted: In Burma, more than 125,000
Muslims have been ethnically cleansed by Buddhist forces. In the Central
African Republic, both Christian and Muslim militia killed civilians of the
other faith. The International Labor Organization estimates that 21 million
are victims of forced labor. Arbitrary detention and torture were used in
many countries.
The Power of Human Rights focuses on practices and policies within a
theoretical perspective in order to link empirical research to broader
human rights issues. This changed international environment is ultimately
more important than specific country features and economics in explaining
the spread of human rights norms around the world. This Book will be of
useful for practitioners, policymakers and advocates alike.