Human Rights: Norms, Responsibilities & Redress - Essay Sample

Introduction

Human rights refer to a set of norms that govern how individuals and groups are treated by the state or non-state actors in which they live or operate. This treatment is based on ethical principles that society considers to be fundamental to life. The norms are therefore incorporated into the legal systems at both the national and international levels. They specify the procedures and mechanisms by which those in duty are held responsible, as wells as being sources of redress for victims of a violation of such rights (Marks 1). This paper discusses the origin of human rights laws and how they are implemented in society. It also focuses on the rights of special groups of people, such as refugees, undocumented immigrants, and disability that may not exist within the legal systems.

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The history of the laws can be explained through the historical milestones that human rights took. They were formed from many perspectives expressed by different individuals, the society as well as institutions. Four approaches can be used to explain the history of human rights. The first of these is the deeper focus on the origins of the laws during the ancient times. This approach looks at the justice, religious, the philosophical concepts of compassion, individual value, charity, as well as the respect for life. The spheres looked at including those of the early Christians, the Muslims, Buddhists, Judaism, and Confucianism (Marks 5).

The ancient codes of the Babylonians contained declaration precursors of human rights called the Hammurabi about 1772 BC. These governed how the people were treated. However, the treatment that people were given depended on the class or status that they had in society. Other ancient codes of conduct include Persia's Charter of Cyrus, about 535 BC, as well as India's Ashoka edicts that existed about 250BC. In precolonial Africa, there also existed rules and traditions that defined human rights (Marks 5).

The second approach looks at modern human rights as a product of the theories of natural laws that existed in ancient Rome and Greece. The theology of Christianity in the middle ages also consisted of segments of human rights. There were rebellions in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries that led to the birth of human rights. They can also be traced from the French and American revolutions that resulted from form the work of philosophers to enlighten the people. The other source was the abolitionist in the 19th century. The suffrage and the rights of workers' movements also played a major role in the establishment of human rights (Marks 5).

All the above efforts, ranging from rebellions, use of philosophy, revolutions, and the efforts of the workers and women suffrage movements led to the abolition of slavery, workers began to be treated better, and women were more accepted in the society. Politics and Christianity also played a role in shaping the definitions of norms by which people were treated. Workers began to be treated better in terms of wages and the number of workers spent at work. The suffrage movement created a platform for women to express their feelings and participate in politics and the electoral process, just like men. It also led to the establishment of rights that would protect them from many forms of domestic violence, such as marital rape.

The third approach is tracing human rights in its establishment in the United Nations Charter that was made in 1945. This was in reaction to the Holocaust that saw 6 million people of Jewish origin being murdered by Nazi Germany before and during the second world war. The human rights declared by the United Nations were also in conjunction with the Four Freedoms of president Roosevelt. In the year 1948, there was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. These were then adopted into laws stipulated in national constitutions by many countries (Marks 5).

The last approach is the revisionist history that is recently used. It considers human rights as peripheral following the aftermath of the second world war. The rights were only important as a utopian movement and ideal, which started in the early 1970s aiming to be part of the prevailing climate of ideologies (Marks 6). In the new society, the norms were changing, and social rights expanded to include more and more groups of people. These people included women, the disabled, immigrants, among others. Therefore, ideologies were growing in the spheres that made up the society, leading to the development and expansion of human rights.

Laws about human rights are applied in ethical, advocacy discourse, and the legal fields in any given society. As noted earlier, several theories explain the origin of human rights. There also exist theoretical frameworks that explain the scope and significance of human rights. These exist in the spheres of politics, morality, and jurisprudence. Debates concerning the application of human rights are based on moral reasoning, norms sanctioned socially, as well as social mobilization. The implementation of these laws is broken down below.

There exists a difficulty in differentiating the implementation of human rights from their supervision. The terms supervision, implementation, monitoring, and protection are used indiscriminately to refer to the mechanisms of checking whether standards are adhered to and if states are compliant to the human rights standards (Chapman 1). The essence of supervision is to monitor compliance at the domestic, national, and international levels. Therefore, implementation is a term used to mean the actual compliance of the concerned parties to the provisions of human rights laws and standards.

The UN offers advisory services to individual states regarding their human rights obligations. It also offers assistance to these states to ensure that they improve human rights respect. The Human Rights Council of the UN allows individual states to discuss various questions related to their implementation and those about supervision (Reggie 6).

Implementation of human rights laws at the national level depends on the political will of nations to be compliant with international standards. This includes the capacities of a state in economic regards, cultural, and social rights. There exists a cooperative network that ensures that international organizations and non-state actors remain compliant with the set international standards and norms.

The implementation process involves many activities. These include the activities that target to improve compliance of nations, for example, through the enactment of the administrative practices and national laws related to compliance with human rights standards. The activities also aim to strengthen the judicial systems, educate the public, create institutions for national human rights, improving the minimum health standards for individuals, improving the condition of prisons, and seeking to increase participation in governance.

There are three most important activities that states undertake. These are the incorporation of international human rights standards into the domestic laws, establishment of institutions for human rights, and human rights education. In a general view, for states to ensure compliance with the human rights laws, they must first incorporate the international standards into their domestic laws. The international treaties do not provide directions on how countries should comply with the human rights laws but rather leaves it open for the states to decide how they achieve compliance (Cole 410). However, there are a few agreements that stipulate the obligation or mandate of countries to adopt the international laws into the domestic legal system as one of the frameworks for implementation (Reggie 6). Examples of these treaties include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. They mandate that countries need to pass domestic laws that would give effect to those rights set in them.

There exist many ways of ensuring human rights are implemented at the national level. These include adoption, transformation, incorporation, passive transformation, as well as reference. The countries may use one or more of these strategies in implementing human rights laws. Incorporation may be achieved through the ratification and publication of treaty provisions in the gazette. In such a case, both international laws and local policies have the same effect, hence the monist situation. The other system that exists is the dualist system. This involves the enactment of provisions of the treaties before they are turned into domestic laws. In such a system, a strong distinction between international and domestic laws is maintained. For international laws to become applicable in countries that use this system, they must be transformed into domestic laws. Irrespective of the system used by countries, the human rights norms must be recognized, respected, and applied in the decisions made by domestic courts as well as the legal operators.

International laws are used as guidance by the legal operators and domestic courts in interpreting the domestic laws. The laws are also applicable when developing domestic laws. International human rights laws may also be used as minimum protections for people. The implementation of laws concerning human rights becomes joint and coordinated efforts by all arms of the national governments, i.e., the judiciary, executive, and the legislature.

The approach of training and educating people on human rights at the domestic level is another approach used to increase the effectiveness in compliance. This ensures that the public is aware of their rights. Through education, those involved in the application of justice as well as making decisions can consider the important aspects of human rights (Bajaj 501). The use of ombudspersons is very important for the government as it enhances the institutionalization of human rights. Aside from educating populations to empower them, the process also leads to the creation of awareness.

Implementation at the international level uses three different approaches. These include the promotion of human rights by the use of positive approaches, responding to violation through reactive approaches, and the application of holistic approaches in situations that concern human rights. The establishment of international organizations on human rights is important in promoting human rights. These institutions are important in ensuring that nations are compliant with the set laws. For instance, countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the largest security council, have an international organization for human rights called the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The promotion of democracy is important in enhancing respect for human rights (Babayan and Daniela 5). Also, there are agencies of the UN that are involved in defending and advocating for human rights globally (Reggie 6). Another organization is the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Aside from the above agencies, there are human rights Non-Governmental Organizations that are actively involved in the promotion of human rights. The other one is the European Convention on Human Rights (Anagnostou and Alina 208). These agencies help in developing cooperation at the international level.

The second method of implementation is by use of reactive approaches. This is done in response to violations of human rights. The approaches used here seek to create an international environment for human rights that does not minimize the need to constantly respond to the violation of such rights. When states respond to human rights violations that occur in other countries, international compliance is promoted as opposed to the...