Against Human Rights

Philosophy ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 65 (253) ◽  
pp. 341-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
John O. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
United Nations Charter ◽  
The U.S

Let me first explain what I am not attacking in this paper. I am not attacking, for instance, the right of free speech or any of the other specific rights listed in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights or the United Nations' Charter. I am, rather, attacking any specific right's being called a ‘human right’. I mean to show that any such designation is not only fraudulent but, in case anyone might want to say that there can be noble lies, grossly wicked, amounting indeed to genocide.

scholarly journals The Human Right to Water and Unconventional Energy

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 1858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Palmer ◽  
Damien Short ◽  
Walter Auch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

Access to water, in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality is vital for human health. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in General Comment 15, drafted 2002) argued that access to water was a condition for the enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and thus a human right. On 28 July 2010 the United Nations General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. This paper charts the international legal development of the right to water and its relevance to discussions surrounding the growth of unconventional energy and its heavy reliance on water. We consider key data from the country with arguably the most mature and extensive industry, the USA, and highlight the implications for water usage and water rights. We conclude that, given the weight of testimony of local people from our research, along with data from scientific literature, non-governmental organization (NGO) and other policy reports, that the right to water for residents living near fracking sites is likely to be severely curtailed. Even so, from the data presented here, we argue that the major issue regarding water use is the shifting of the resource from society to industry and the demonstrable lack of supply-side price signal that would demand that the industry reduce or stabilize its water demand per unit of energy produced. Thus, in the US context alone, there is considerable evidence that the human right to water will be seriously undermined by the growth of the unconventional oil and gas industry, and given its spread around the globe this could soon become a global human rights issue.

Teaching Literature in Schools for Democratic Citizenship

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Heilbronn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Creative Arts ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Teaching Literature ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Individual ◽  
United Nations Charter ◽  
At Home

Education is a human right and benefits both the individual and the whole society. Education that encourages debate and discussion and acknowledges complexity and ambiguity is essential for people to develop a respect for others and for democracy—that is, to participate as citizens. This concept is encapsulated in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. The humanities and the creative arts are important curriculum areas that can encompass diversity and complexity and support the development of a necessary critical disposition. Study in these areas helps to create people who are at home in a culture in which openness to others and criticality in receiving ideas are paramount. Literature plays a key role in attaining these curriculum aims.

Tibetans Wait for China's Next Move

Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 36-39
Author(s):  
Kesang Tseten
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
American Civil Liberties Union ◽  
The U.S ◽  
International League

AbstractIt has been twenty years since the Tibetan uprising. Last March, Tibetans and their American supporters rallied outside the United Nations building to commemorate that uprising against Chinese troops occupying the Tibetan homeland.Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and honorary president of the International League for Human Rights, was there calling for support of resolutions passed three times by the U.S. General Assembly, in 1959, 1961, and 1965. The U.S. called “for respect for the fundamental human rights of the Tibetan people and for their right to self-determination.” The rally, Baldwin said, was to protest the “subjection of six million people to foreign rule” and to uphold “the right to live in your own house.” The nonagenarian champion of civil liberties expressed some hope: “It may be that autonomy, semi-independence in Tibet, may be granted when China settles down into the modernization it seeks.”

Securing a Human Right to Peace

2016 ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
Dale T. Snauwaert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
United Nations Declaration ◽  
The Right ◽  
Significant Effort

In a groundbreaking session at the United Nations on June 6, 2013 members of civil society and the UN Secretariat opened a very significant inquiry into fundamental questions of the desirability and possibilities of bringing an end to war. Some have posed this query in terms of whether there is a fundamental human right to peace. The United Nations, members of the global civil society, and scholars have engaged in a significant effort to articulate a human right to peace (See, for example, Alston 1980, Roche 2003, Weiss 2010), and the UN Human Rights Council has established an open-ended intergovernmental working group to draft a United Nations declaration on the right to peace (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/AdvisoryCommittee/Pages/RightToPeace.aspx).This brief essay is intended to launch that same discussion among peace educators.

scholarly journals Exposing and exposing censorship: Backfire dynamics in freedom-of-speech struggle

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Curry Jansen ◽  
Brian Martin
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
Backfire Effect

Censorship can backfire because it is usually viewed as a violation of the right to free expression, which is widely valued as an ideal; under the Charter of the United Nations, freedom of expression is a universal human right. Backfire occurs, for example, when censorious attacks on a film or book cultivate increased demand for the forbidden work rather than restrict access to it. Censors can inhibit this backfire effect in various ways, including covering up the censorship, devaluing the target, reinterpreting the action, using official channels, and using intimidation and bribery. These five methods to inhibit backfire from attacks on free speech are illustrated by a variety of cases, including attacks that backfired and ones that did not. This analysis provides guidance for effectively opposing attacks on free expression.

scholarly journals Secession, Democracy & Human Rights

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Reimers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Spontaneous Order ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Current Process ◽  
Coercive Behavior ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
United Nations Charter

The United Nations (UN) officially declared "self-determination" as a right of all peoples. Although the United Nations Charter (1945) offers some guidelines for the application of this right, there are major challenges in its implementation in the case of secessionist tendencies. Faced with this situation, the economist Jörg Guido Hülsmann, in his essay Secession and the Production of Defense, discussed not only the argument that pure private production is always superior to public and compulsory schemes, but also the current process of secession which, should always be justified against violent and coercive behavior of governments against (part of) its population. Hülsmann's ideas are presented in the contrast of the latest secessionist movements in Catalonia and Scotland, and in combination with Hayek's concept of "spontaneous order." The separatist movementin Catalonia is also analyzed based on the ideas of political scientist Margaret Moore, who advocates three types of normative theories that can justify the right to secession.

Arguing the Right to a Safe Climate under the UN Human Rights System

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-212
Author(s):  
Ademola Oluborode Jegede
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

Abstract The link between climate change and human rights is being made under the instruments as well as charter and treaty bodies constituting the United Nations (UN) human rights system. Despite the efforts, the right to a safe climate does not exist under the UN human rights system. Based on the vulnerability of human populations and the essential compliance with yardsticks for a new human right, the article argues for the creation of the right to a safe climate and advances two approaches by which it can be achieved under the UN human rights system.

Freedom of Language: A Universal Human Right to Be Recognised

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
György Andrássy
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

Human rights as legal rights originate from human rights as pre-existing moral rights; however, as pre-existing human rights are unwritten and invisible, it is uncertain whether all of these rights have been recognised and defined properly. This article advances the thought that if there are any human rights at all and if the civil and political rights recognised and defined by the United Nations represent these pre-existing human rights, then there must be at least one more such right, the right of all to freedom of language and, therefore, the United Nations ought to recognise and define this right too.

scholarly journals The Human Right to Internet Access: A Philosophical Defense

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Kay Mathiesen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Internet Access ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Right To Communicate ◽  
The Right

The United Nations has suggested that access to the Internet is a human right. In this paper, I defend the U.N.’s position against a number of challenges. First, I show that Vinton Cerf’s recent rejection of the human right to the Internet is based on a misunderstanding of the nature and structure of human rights. Second, I argue that the Internet enables the right to communicate, which is a linchpin right, and, thus, states have a duty to see to it that citizens have access to Internet technology. Third, I argue that concerns that the Internet can be used to engage in oppression and imperialism do not show that there is not a human right to it. Rather, it shows that the right to the Internet must be understood as part of a larger system of human rights.

The U.S. and the USSR: Religious Liberty as a Human Right

Worldview ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 26-35
Author(s):  
Robert F. Smylie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The U.S

Speaking before the United Nations, President Jimmy Carter declared that "The basic thrust of human affairs points toward a universal demand for fundamental human rights. The United States has a historic birthright to be associated with this process." He was reiterating his inaugural day commitment: "Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere."

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