Human Rights Discussion

This essay will argue that Human Rights should be universal, however currently they are not due to mitigating circumstances that need to be addressed. Also the question of whether religious beliefs and inherent laws to certain countries mean that Human Rights shouldn’t be universal. The General Assembly of the UN states that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.” (UN, 1948) Although the UN states that Human Rights are a standard of living that everyone should be able to live by, things such as sovereignty and political will make this a difficult feat to achieve.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the USA, “the US administration betrayed the cause of the protection of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms in the name of national security and counterterrorism.” (Ramsay 2006) The US did this through the torture of many “terror suspects” and also portrayed in the photos taken from gaol’s in Iraq with the American soldiers standing with pyramids of naked prisoners as their “prize”. This is an example of how at the moment Human Rights are treated as being different depending on your culture and ethical differences. The US are a nation that has pushed for human rights to be universal in the past, and through trying to achieve some of the basic human rights for people in their own country and others has violated them themselves. Through the use of Guantanamo Bay where “terror suspects” can be kept unconditionally and be tortured to try and get information, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq the US violates a multitude of basic human rights, and does not comply with the Convention Against Torture and other cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The conventions defines the term torture and bans torture absolutely “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war, internal political instability or any kind of public emergency, must be invoked as a justification for torture” (UN, 1994) Even with these conventions and the UN and other non-governmental organisations, nations are allowed to do what they want because of State Sovereignty and a lack of political will from other countries around the world to stop these human rights violations, and a lack of political will to make human rights universal and not based on cultural and ethical views and beliefs.