The International Community and Human Rights

The most crucial issue facing the international community is human rights. Human rights are an issue that cannot be ignored anymore. There is rhetoric about the lack of definition and agreement being the hold up on the protection of human rights. While these things may be hindrances they are not the root issue, if people cared enough about others all across the world governments would respond to the pressure. Human rights fail to be enforced because of state self-interest. This must change. There are three key areas that undermine human rights: state weakness, state sovereignty, and lack of international authority.

The first area that undermines human rights is state weakness. State weakness is when the state regime does not have a strong central government or legal system (Englehart, 2009). These states have little control of their population, so they are more likely to resort to alternative methods to exert control. The governments do not have the support of the people. Thus the governments start abusing people in attempts to gain control (Englehart, 2009). The abuses are often human rights violations such as mass murder or disappearing people who speak out against the government. Strong states that have strong central governments and more just legal systems. These governments are much less likely to resort to abuse of their people to exert control (Englehart, 2009). Control of people is exerted only against those who have broken clearly specified laws and they are dealt with in a pre-specified answer. The weak states don’t have clear laws or punishments (Englehart, 2009). Thus the people can be abused much more easily with little to no protection from their own state. There is an argument that states should be...

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... of human rights violations states can have the best of both worlds. This means that they are both protected from unwarranted intrusion by other states and the people can still be protected from abuse by the state. Protecting others from human rights violations must be a global concern because most people would want to be protected from state abuse.

Works Cited

Englehart, N. A. (2009). Capacity, State Failure, and Human Rights . Journal of Peace Research , 46 (2), 163-180.

Garcia, F. J. (2002). Trade, Constitutionalism, and Human Rights: An Overview. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law) , 132-134.

OHCHR. (2012). United Nations Human Rights Council . Retrieved April 25, 2013, from United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/AboutCouncil.aspx