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Combating Female Genital Mutilation: An agenda for the Decade research paper
female genital mutilation research
female genital mutilation research
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The human rights system has been created by both top-down and bottom-up dynamics, by the relationship between the global and the local. Discuss. The global human rights system has undoubtably been produced and sustained by both top-down and bottom-up dynamics which operate on global and local scales. It is because of these polar hierarchic systems that human rights violations against individuals and groups at a local level can be recognised and understood globally and acted on consequently using the appropriate channels. Despite being beneficial in this way, both top-down and bottom-up approaches are also fundamentally flawed in some of the ways they spread information and enforce strategies for the protection of victims from human rights violations and seek retribution of perpetrators. This is an inauspicious but inevitable consequence of any scheme that attempts to universalise human experience and suffering as it occurs within infinite and dissimilar contexts and has a limitless range of meanings and outcomes(Messer, 1993, pp.228). The global human rights system has the quandary of deciding upon the human rights that ought to be universal, equal and not subject to cultural relativism across the exceptionally diverse cultural spectrum that exists in the world today(Gutman, 2001, pp.7). It is no wonder that it is regarded worldwide as a highly debated and controversial topic. The United Nations ban on female genital mutilation is a superb and extremely well known example of a practise that has been banned globally despite being an ancient religious and cultural tradition in thousands of societies around the world on account of it being a gross violation of human rights(UN Women, 2012). This ban being passed as international law ... ... middle of paper ... ...hey are respected. Indeed, it seems explicitly clear that both processes must be embraced as the answer to the international predicament of human rights. Bibliography Gutman. Amy (2001). 'Introduction' to Michael Ignatieff Human Rights: As Politics and Idolatory, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. Vii-xxviii. Hastrup, Kirsten (2003) 'Violence, suffering and human rights: anthropological reflections,' Anthropological Theory 3(3): 309-323 Ife, J (2009) Human Rights from Below: Achieving rights through community development, Frances Wade, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne. Messer, Ellen (1993) 'Anthropology and Human Rights.' Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 221-49. United Nations Ban Female Genital Mutilation, 20/12/12, Viewed 19th April, 2013, UN Women
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.
In “Four Human Rights Myths” Susan Marks discusses several conceptions (or misconceptions according to her) about human rights. She begins her paper with a case study of the 2011 London riots and how distinctively different is their coverage by the British prime minister and two scholars.
Jacobs, William Jay. Great Lives, Human Rights. New York New York: Simon and Schuster. 1990. Print.
The issue of human rights has arisen only in the post-cold war whereby it was addressed by an international institution that is the United Nation. In the United Nation’s preamble stated that human rights are given to all humans and that there is equality for everyone. There will not be any sovereign states to diminish its people from taking these rights. The globalization of capitalism after the Cold War makes the issue of human rights seems admirable as there were sufferings in other parts of the world. This is because it is perceived that the western states are the champion of democracy which therefore provides a perfect body to carry out human rights activities. Such human sufferings occur in a sovereign state humanitarian intervention led by the international institution will be carried out to end the menace.
Since the Renaissance of the 15th century, societal views have evolved drastically. One of the largest changes has been the realization of individualism, along with the recognition of inalienable human rights.(UDHR, A.1) This means that all humans are equal, free, and capable of thought; as such, the rights of one individual cannot infringe on another’s at risk of de-humanizing the infringed upon. The fact that humans have a set of natural rights is not contested in society today; the idea of human rights is a societal construction based on normative ethical codes. Human rights are defined from the hegemonic standpoint, using normative ethical values and their application to the interactions of individuals with each other and state bodies. Human rights laws are legislature put in place by the governing body to regulate these interactions.
R. Beitz, Charles. “Human Rights as a Common Concern”. The American Political Science Review, American Political Science Association, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Jun., 2001), pp. 269-282. Web
Hayden, Patrick. "13. Bentham." Philosophy of Human Rights. Paragon House, 2001. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <https://courses.ryerson.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-2707097-dt-content-rid-2644870_2/courses/phl400_f12_01/Jeremy%20Bentham%20-%20Anarchical%20Fallacies.pdf>
In the last hundreds years, human beings have been suffered of many kind of arbitrary persecution and punishment. For example, slavery and servitude, in the past it was legal to buy man or women and after period of time you can sell them, so they were treat human beings as same as the goods. There was not law to protect human beings in many regional around the world. So that made some countries to think about the human rights and create a law to control these rights and to live all human beings in peace without any type of arbitrary persecution. For instance, Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the European Convention on human rights in Roma 1950 and other kinds of conventions on human rights. These declaration and conventions were based on the faith of some states for the importance of human rights. There were different between conventions in the definition of human rights, but all of them cover the fundamentals of human rights. A good illustration of the definition of human rights is that it is rights which are held by all human beings. Whatever their ethnicity, national, language, age, sex, religion, beliefs and any other status. Human beings are all equally to have these rights without discrimination . This essay will be consider the definition of three regional for protection human rights which are the Inter-American convention of Human Rights, the European convention on Human rights and the African Charter of Human Rights, and then explain some difference between them in law and how it organize the right of life.
45 Oona Hathaway, ‘Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?’ (2003) 112 Yale Law Journal
There is such a thing as universality of human rights that is different from cultural relativism, humanity comes before culture and traditions. People are humans first and belong to cultures second (Collaway, Harrelson-Stephens, 2007 p.109), this universality needs to take priority over any cultural views, and any state sovereignty over its residing citizens.
113-117 Human Rights: Politics and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
In her article ‘From Citizenship to Human Rights: The Stakes for Democracy’ Tambakaki notes that apart from playing a political role, human rights are in principal moral and legal rights. Like moral norms they refer to every creature that bears a human face while as legal norms they protect individual persons in a particular legal community (pp9).
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report (2000) Human Rights and Human Development (New York) p.19 [online] Available from: [Accessed 2 March 2011]
The role that globalization plays in spreading and promoting human rights and democracy is a subject that is capable spurring great debate. Human rights are to be seen as the standards that gives any human walking the earth regardless of any differences equal privileges. The United Nations goes a step further and defines human rights as,
The universal declaration of human rights declared that all people have equal rights, regardless of race, gender, religion, language, culture, birth status, national origin, or opinion. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups. (ohchr.org) The universality of human rights is a concept that allows everyone to have the same basic human rights no matter where the location. If that concept is true then why are people being tortured and ostracized. Why are people still afraid of going against their leaders, fearing that they will be found and killed. It is because some leaders