Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellences, members of the United Nations General Assembly, and all who may one day hear this speech,
This evening, I have been charged with the responsibility of standing here before you all to deliver a speech on the state of human rights within our world today. Though I am enchanted and humbled that I have been selected to do this, I must admit something quite significant to you all. As the ninth Secretary General of the United Nations my heart is heavy. Truthfully, never in my life have I been so awestruck with the devotion of men and women like the very ones who are seated in front of me this evening. I have been edified by the experience of working alongside you all these past ten years. While working with you all, I have seen a commitment that truly can’t be matched. Though many people do not get a chance to see your hard
…show more content…
Equally as foreboding to the state of human rights today, I could have mentioned the 106 schoolgirls poisoned by a mysterious gas in Afghanistan that were ignored by large media outlets or the increasing incidents of female genital mutilation in Guinea that has yet to make the front page of any major Newspaper in the west. If you take anything away from this speech tonight please let it be that, many of the people who experience the injustices that we work assiduously to eradicate, do not recognize them to be injustices. They have been duped to consider their circumstances as natural occurrences for people all around the world. To me, this is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century. But I believe we now have something to combat this threat. In the 21st century we have a tool perhaps more powerful than any tangible tool our ancestors could have fashioned to help us educated people on the injustices that they live in right
Pillay, Navi. "HUMAN RIGHTS HIGH COMMISSIONER SAYS RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT OFFERS OPPORTUNITY TO PREPARE FUTURE RESPONSE TO SITUATIONS UNITED NATIONS WAS CREATED TO PREVENT." United Nations. It's Your World. Department of Public Information, 22 Jul 2009. Web. 14 Jan 2014. .
How much more do we need to do before we start responding to these legacies? Works Cited United Human Rights Council. United Human Rights Council. N.p., n.d. Web. The Web.
Hilary Clinton emphasizes the quote that “women’s rights are human rights” during the U.N. 4th world Conference that was held on September 5, 1995 in Beijing, China. She makes several points that contribute to her argument that women’s voices should be heard, that “if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish”, that what women go through is inhumane and should not be tolerated. To these points across she uses pathos, ethos, and logos, as well as efficient use of diction, repetition, and tone.
.... Address to the 46th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Retrieved April 7, 2014, from Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States of America: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=20012
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (n.d.). United Nations. Retrieved April 18, 2011, from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
Baraka is a globally renowned organizer of the rising human rights movement in the United States. He has been at the forefront of efforts to apply the international human rights framework to social justice advocacy for more than twenty five years. As such Baraka has given human rights trainings for working class activists across the United States, as well as briefings on human rights to the US Congress. He has also given public speeches to several United Nations agencies, including the UN Human Rights Commission (precursor t...
Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and Justice for All of Us. Accessed on October 29,
Taken from an edited version of a speech by Sabina Virgo, given in L.A. on International Human Rights Day, December 8, 1990.
According to Thomas Jefferson, all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights. Unalienable rights are rights given to the people by their Creator rather than by government. These rights are inseparable from us and can’t be altered, denied, nullified or taken away by any government, except in extremely rare circumstances in which the government can take action against a particular right as long as it is in favor of the people’s safety. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America mentions three examples of unalienable rights: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. I believe these rights, since they are acquired by every human being from the day they are conceived, should always be respected, but being realistic, most of the time, the government intervenes and either diminishes or
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California at Berkeley started during the fall of 1964. (Freeman, Jo) But there were many events leading up to this point. The Free Speech Movement began to obtain momentum in the fall of 1963 and the spring of 1964 the Bay Area was rocked with the civil rights demonstrations against employers who practiced racial discrimination. (Freeman, Jo) These students believed that this was wrong and felt the need to do something about it. So many Berkeley students were recruited for these protests from Bancroft and Telegraph which where the companies that were racial discriminating against races and groups of people.(Freeman, Jo) With these protest there were many arrest made of Berkeley students there were about 500 arrests made over several months. (Freeman, Jo)
Human rights are all rights concentrated in the Universal Declaration of human Rights (UDHR), arranged into two large classes of civil-political and socio-economic rights. The “Vienna world conference in 1993 perceived that every human right is”dddd widespread, unified, related and interrelated. This is recognized by “the most honorable” South African constitution which incorporate a scope of socio-economic and civil- political rights. Besides, Justice Albie Sachs states, 'we don 't need bread without flexibility, nor do we don 't need opportunity bread; we need both.1 the standard of universality and solidarity is not completely enveloped in advanced countries. The connection between civil-political and socio-economic rights has elevated
On December 10th 1948, the General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration, although not legally binding, created “a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations.to promote respect for those rights and freedoms” (Goodhart, 379). However, many cultures assert that the human rights policies outlined in the declaration undermine cultural beliefs and practices. This assertion makes the search for universal human rights very difficult to achieve. I would like to focus on articles 3, 14 and 25 to address how these articles could be modified to incorporate cultural differences, without completely undermining the search for human rights practices.
Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and Justice for All of Us. Accessed on October 29,
The link between democracy and human rights has been recognized by many scholars. For example O’Donnell (2004) summarized the quality of democracy as: Quality of Democracy = human rights + human development. This viewpoint indicates that democracy encapsulates human rights. Several research findings strongly support the idea that states with higher levels of democracy, regardless of their election rules, are more respectful of human rights (Davenport 1997; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999).