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Human Rights
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What is Human Rights?

Human rights is a foundational subject in political science, international relations, law, and ethics courses. It examines the basic freedoms and protections owed to individuals by virtue of their humanity, and explores how governments, international bodies, and civil society are responsible for upholding them. The topic carries significant academic weight because it sits at the intersection of legal frameworks, moral philosophy, and political power. Students are drawn to questions about how rights are defined, who enforces them, and what happens when state sovereignty conflicts with international standards — tensions that make this subject intellectually rich and practically urgent.

Papers on this topic take a wide range of approaches. Comparative analyses examine how different regions and institutions protect or violate rights, including the African human rights system, ASEAN, and the European Union following the Treaty of Lisbon. Historical and textual approaches appear in work comparing the Medina Charter with the 1948 International Declaration of Human Rights. Policy-oriented papers evaluate United Nations peacekeeping operations or the role of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International. Case-study work addresses specific issues such as the voting rights of felons, the treatment of migrant workers, infant circumcision, and ethics in animal research.

A strong essay on human rights needs a clearly scoped thesis that moves beyond general advocacy and engages a specific tension — between individual freedom and government authority, for example, or between national sovereignty and international accountability. Evidence drawn from treaties, legal cases, and the records of specific institutions carries the most weight. A common pitfall is treating rights as self-evidently universal without addressing the genuine political and cultural debates that surround their interpretation and enforcement.

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Research Paper Doctorate

Political oppression and the construction of otherness in authoritarian systems

Political conflict and oppressive political power are most often associated with the desires and in some cases even the whim of the ruling body, be it authoritarian or otherwise. In some cases there is even the simple…

Paper Undergraduate

Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden: trauma and justice

Death and the Maiden, by Ariel Dorfman can be considered as an ethical thriller based in a nation which recently regained democratic power. This was possibly Chile towards the end of the 70's.

Essay Doctorate

Obama and Romney's realist and liberal approaches to foreign policy

Obama & Romney – Foreign Policy Approaches Introduction If "realist" stands for a person who pursues "security" based on "self-interest," "determinism," and "morality" on the international scene (quotes chosen from Chapter 1); and if "liberal" stands for "capable of cooperating," "cooperation," the impact of "non-governmental groups" (NGOs), "having many interests" and "international society," then President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both reflect some of each of these traits, albeit Obama leans more toward a liberal, cooperative approach to international relations and Romney stalks a position based more based on power and self interest and – although he doesn't spell it out in specifics – he embraces the concept of American exceptionalism (that is, the U.S. has the moral role of providing leadership for the world because American values are on a higher plane than other values). This paper reviews and critiques positions each candidate has taken on foreign policy issues, referencing the concepts of realist and liberal within the context of their various positions.

Paper Undergraduate

Federalists and Anti-Federalists on diversity and republican government

This work in writing conducts a contrast and comparison of the anti-federalists and the federalists during the time prior to the ratification of the new U.S. Constitution with a specific view on Farmer #10 of the Anti-Federalists Papers written by James Madison. Diversity is addressed and the meaning of it as debated by the two parties.

Paper Doctorate

Defining terrorism and theories of terrorist motivation

Terrorism is the destruction of property or people by individuals or an individual who do not operate for an established entity. Their actions are always aimed at redressing an imaginary or a real injustice towards an established government. Not all actions of destruction of property or people can be categorized as terrorism. The most vital factors that characterize the definition of terrorism include the following aspects like people not representing an established institution but acting to cause destruction. An act of destruction cannot qualify as terrorism without the above characteristics.

Research Paper Doctorate

How 9/11 changed American discourse on terrorism's causes

Protecting Ourselves against Terrorism major consequence of 9/11 has been that now one cannot talk rationally about terrorism and its causes. Any attempt to look for the reason why anyone would be mad enough to blow up…

Research Paper Doctorate

Schindler's List and moral transformation during the Holocaust

Today, all the numerous discussions and discourses on the issue of human rights no longer refers to the traditional belief in an 'ordained chain' of being, wherein the idea of there being a 'natural hierarchy' was…

Paper Doctorate

Healthcare access denial and health outcomes for undocumented workers

One of the hot button issues that have been continually debated over the last several years is: the status of undocumented workers. Where, denying these individuals access from having health care services is a way of…

Research Paper Doctorate

Andean indigenous rights and Amazon conservation in global politics

In today's society, there is a tremendous need for global initiatives to support biodiversity, conservation and the protection of nature, as well as the culture of local inhabitants, especially those living in the Amazon.

Paper High School

Rhetorical analysis of Paul Keating's Redfern Park speech

Paul Keating's speech at Redfern Park in Sydney is a brilliant example of rhetoric and experienced political spin. The speech is well-executed and shows solid use of fallacy and the three modes of persuasion: pathos, ethos, and logos. The use of rhetorical devices is akin an expert sushi chef using his knives—rapid, precise, stunning. The use of epiphora, particularly in tricolon format, lends both cadence and emphasis. The word imagine is used in this manner and in epiphora convention, as the word is repeated in successive clauses. The connotation of the word confident is made more powerful by its proximity to the word imagine. Further, antithesis is threaded throughout by deliberate distinctions between non-Aboriginal and indigenous Australians, and presumably to use the favored terms of reference for every member of the audience—as it is a political speech. There is a great divide between the experiences and treatment of the privileged primarily white non-indigenous citizens of Australia and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Keating does not shy away from this fact. Indeed, he even underscores the confounding problem by reminding the now privileged Australians that they were not always so, through his use of erotema. He asks again and again, if Australia did not open its doors and extend its hands to the dispossessed people of Ireland, Britain, Europe, and Asia.

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