The term "human rights" is mentioned seven times in the founding Charter of the United Nations, so its promotion and protection are fundamental objectives of the Organization.
United Nations Human Rights Regime is based on Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that was the first legal document to protect these rights together with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, these tree instruments form the International Charter of Human Rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rights was signed in 1948 by 48 countries, it constitutes an orientation document that points out the 30 articles of human rights considered basic and the international human rights pacts that are international treaties that oblige the signatory States to comply with them. The union of these two together with its protocols understand what has been called the letter of human rights.
United Nations Human Rights Council is elected from General Assembly, it negotiates and propose new Human Rights norms and oversees the Promotion and Universal Periodic Review of countries Human Rights situation.
Knowing the principles of universality, interdependence, indivisibility and progressiveness and what they refer to is necessary for having a broad understanding in the many topics that correspond to human rights.
These four principles can be summarized in the fact that human rights correspond to all people for equal, and they are linked ones with others. The recognition or exercise of one implies the respect of multiple rights that are linked.
It is important that in human right issues the State ensure progress in the constructive development of human rights, which implies the prohibition of any setback.
Human Rights as public international law only bind states and apply only within own territory and for own nationals. It was originally a political concept, which translated into the State's respect for the freedom and autonomy of the human person.
Human Rights can technically only be violated by the state and it is their duty to both respect and protect against violations. So individual crimes are not human right violations.
The state governments have the obligation to harmonize the local legal framework with the provisions of the general law of victims by creating the state commission for comprehensive assistance to victims, the assistance fund and comprehensive reparation, state registry of victims, and the legal advice for implementation and operation of the national system of operation to victims.
The international regime is relatively weak in enforcing things, but international relations can still play an important role in enforcing human rights outside the legal framework.
Countries can encourage each other to respect human rights for example:
Diplomatic: Private / Public denouncements, Encouraging / Shaming.
Symbolic actions: breaking relations, cancelling visits, etc.
“The right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself” -Hannah Arendt
'The Origins of Totalitarianism' was published in 1951 by Hannah Arendt. It's is considered to be the first major work of Arendt.
It is divided into three sections:
Antisemitism, the first three chapters;
imperialism, chapter five to nine;
Totalitarianism, chapter ten to fourteen.
About the author:
Hannah Arendt was a political theorist and philosopher. Arendt was born in Hannover, Germany in October 14, 1906.
In 1933, She fled Nazi Germany and settled in Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1941. In 1951, She became citizen of the United States after eighteen years of being a stateless refugee.
No human should be deprived of a nationality since being part of a society grants them not only with responsibilities but most importantly rights. This is especially important because human exercise their rights within a society. Although, human rights are rights of individuals, most of them would be pointless without belonging to a group. For instance, political rights within the UDHR would be pointless if you are not a citizen of a state, and if you don’t belong to a society.
The right to have a nationality, thus being a citizenship of a country, is actually contemplated within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 15 states that everyone has the right to a nationality; and furthermore, no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Nevertheless, there have been many cases of governments that deprived their citizen of their nationalities. However, the UN has established a legal framework to address this issue.
Two conventions on Statelessness:
1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons.
Provide a legal definition of stateless and ensure that stateless people enjoy a minimum set of human rights.
1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Aims to prevent statelessness and reduce it over time.
These conventions had established an international framework to ensure the right of every person to a nationality.
Adam Smith → “free trade will enhance the wealth of nations”
David Ricardo → “each country must use their competitive advantage to trade goods for things that other countries are good at producing”
Free trade as a bringer of peace and prosperity:
Less war through interdependence
Correlation between free trade and economic growth (Positive correlation doesn’t prove dysfunction of alternative: some countries had strong growth before liberalizing trade)
More trade = more income = less poverty (see below)
Not always a link between poverty/inequality reduction:
Global reduction in absolute poverty, often achieved in non-liberal countries
Various exceptions where relative poverty has risen or stayed the same.
It’s the condition under which this system (capitalism) is theoretically supposed to function best (lowest barriers to accumulate and compete for money)
2016 was hottest year in 130+ years of measurement.
Data comes from thousands of independent meteorological institutes.
Climate change happened before.
Every time temperature rose there was a correlation with increased carbon, and humans have emitted an enormous amount of carbon since industrial revolution.
This rise in temperature is a lot higher than before.
There is 97% strong scientific consensus on climate change according to U.N., with only 1% opposing it.
Solutions proposed:
Conventional responses:
Increases in energy efficiency
Changes in production
Recycling
Alternative domains for reducing greenhouse gas consumption:
Meat consumption.
Air travel
Luxury goods
Population growth
Collective action problem:
The causes and effects of climate change go beyond one state, it requires international action.
From rationalist perspective follows a need for collective agreements to achieve future benefits.
Unique situation with both a very clear need to cooperate and clear incentives to freeride and break the rules.
Climate change is a unique problem because it questions the standard (left/right) intuition of growth and increases in resources as the solution to problems.
