Justice and human rights

Justice and Human Rights

The years leading up to 1948 featured the most dramatic modern act of genocide, which helped prompt the United Nations to issue the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)" and hold the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG)." The Holocaust resulted in the deaths of approximately six million Jews, and their systemic deprivation of human rights was a matter of law. Unlike many other genocidal regimes, the Third Reich mandated that all of its citizens help engage in anti-Jewish persecution, or else be vulnerable to the same type of punishment and penalties. This was very similar to the genocide of Jews under Stalin, where an untold number of people perished. However, it is easy to point the finger outside of the domestic sphere when looking for reasons that the UN would concern itself with human rights, but the reality is that the institution of slavery, as practiced in the United States, afforded the same type of large-scale human rights deprivation as the Holocaust. Furthermore, at the time that the UN, which included non-white member nations, issued the UDHR and held the CPPCG, the United States was continuing to deprive African-Americans of substantial civil liberties and protections. In addition, other countries had engaged in smaller-scale genocides, leading the international community to the inexorable conclusion that the Holocaust was not an aberration, but merely a vivid example of the human desire to exterminate the other.

The reason for the assertion that "peace" depends on "rights" is because there would be no war if all people recognized that all human beings have equal rights to the world's resources, to prosperity, to food, and to freedoms of religion and speech. It is impossible to wage a war without an element of superiority, because most human beings have a difficult time killing people whom they perceive as equals. Instead, in times of war, the other side is universally depicted as lesser, whether because they are evil or somehow backward in belief or culture. Recognition that human beings are equal and entitled to the same measure of human rights, regardless of culture or birthplace, abrogates this argument, making it far more difficult to wage a war against them. Of course, peace is not merely an international issue. Some of the most horrifying human rights violations have occurred in domestic settings; in fact, almost all of the genocides of the past century have at least begun on a domestic scale. In addition, even the United States engaged in the wide-scale deprivation of human rights in the past century. The systemic oppression of African-Americans did not promote peace domestically, as evidenced by race riots and a long history of racial violence. Therefore, recognizing that human beings are entitled to basic rights is the first step in ensuring that they are afforded those rights. Domestically, though revisionists can argue that the Civil War was fought over the issue of state's rights, the most lethal war in U.S. history would not have been fought if it had already been established that human beings were entitled to certain rights and not subject to enslavement.

3. Despite being a woman in a very male-dominated world, it is fair to say that Eleanor Roosevelt was absolutely instrumental in getting the UDHR passed. One of the goals in establishing the United Nations (UN) was to guarantee some type of protection for human rights; the problem was that the UN charter did not define human rights. Furthermore, there was no global consensus regarding the definition of human rights. Eleanor Roosevelt became chairman of the committee to draft the UDHR. Though Roosevelt was a well-respected and admired woman, who had political experience from her years as First Lady, she had no official diplomatic experience. Therefore, some questioned whether she was up to the task of engaging in such large-scale diplomacy. However, she proved sufficiently capable of engaging in such a task. She was far more realistic than her public image suggested. In fact, her main goal was to have the committee develop a non-binding definition of human rights. This was an important goal, because it established an international standard for human rights, which would make it more difficult for member nations to desire lesser standards in the binding treaties. Furthermore, that view was more realistic coming from the head of the United States, which was still tremendously racially divided, and routinely denied African-Americans their human rights. It was unlikely that American politicians would have ratified a binding treaty.