Human Rights

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Human Rights Global Affairs (PSC 354.001)

• January 21, 2009 (W)

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Today

• Housekeeping
• Digital pictures
• Review of last week
• Course website
• Introducing the three core readings (books)
• Todays readings OByrne and Donnelly
• What are human rights?
• Theory and human rights
• Justifying human rights

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Human Rights Global Affairs (PSC 354.001)

• Are you registered for this class?
• Attendance
• Additions social and economic rights/religious
  freedom
• The quiz
• Digital pictures
• Expectations

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What are human rights?

• Human rights are rights held simply because one
  is a human being.
• Human rights describe a life in human dignity
  framed in a language of rights.
• Rights are trumps, superceding other
  considerations (utility, interests, political
  concerns, etc.)
• Human possibility
• Human rights cover more than basic needs. They
  aim to promote human possibilities in a
  particular, morally defensible way.

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Universal, Inalienable, Indivisible

• Inalienable/incontrovertible
• Rights can not be forfeit, suspended, or given
  up.
• Indivisible
• All rights are equal and depend upon each other.
• Universal
• Every human being enjoys the same rights.
• Rights create duties and obligations for others
• Human rights create obligations and go beyond the
  moral claim of something being right they create
  entitlements (having a right).

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OByrne, introduction, 1-25

• Human rights as a discipline in its own right,
  2
• Human rights research should improve the human
  condition, 3 (is there a conflict with the
  academic ethos of unbiased research?)
• Book focuses primarily on civil and political
  rights, 11

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OByrne, introduction, 1-25

• Human rights abuses today (p. 5-8)
• Ranking countries with regard to human rights
  abuses
• What does human rights research look like (p.
  8-17)?
• What should be included in human rights research?
  What qualifies as a human rights abuse?
• Focus on the key role of the state

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OByrne, introduction, 1-25

• Theory and Human rights, 17
• Theories of human nature because violations are
  committed by individuals (next week)
• Theories of society because violations occur in
  specific social contexts.
• Theories of ethics because we need to understand
  why violations are wrong.
• Theories of politics because the state plays a
  central role in acts of commission or omission.
• Theories of modernization because we face a
  world of simultaneous human rights progress and
  atrocities.

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Donnelly, introduction and ch. 1

• Human rights the rights that one has because
  one is human, 7
• Human rights are NOT granted by the state.
• Human rights are
• Inalienable
• Equal
• Universal
• Indivisible

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Donnelly, introduction and ch. 1

• Human rights are not the same as abstract values,
  11
• To have the right significantly changes the
  relationship between rulers and ruled.
• Human rights are not simply legal rights.
• Example LGBT community frequently appeals to
  human, not legal rights, 12
• Legal rights are based on positive law.

11
Donnelly, introduction and ch. 1

• How do rights work?
• A right is an entitlement. It is not simply a
  benefit or a desirable outcome.
• Assertive exercise to claim a right
• Active respect to consider a right
• Objective enjoyment.
• Human rights violations constitute a special
  class of injustice.

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Donnelly, introduction and ch. 1

• Human rights and human nature
• How can we defend human rights?
• How can we justify human rights?
• Why do those defenses (based on ethics or
  religion) of human rights sometimes fail?
• How does being human create rights? (Donnelly,
  p. 13).
• Possible answers
• Human needs (rejected by Donnelly, p. 14)
• Life in dignity Mans moral nature prescriptive
  account of human possibility

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What is essential human nature?

• Physical needs
• Derives a definition of human rights from the
  scientific study of what humans require for
  survival.
• Weakness neglects dignity and possibility.
• Mental and moral needs
• Shifts attention away from what we are now to
  what we could be in the future.
• Weakness No agreement on human nature and
  possibilities.
• Capacity to suffer and feel compassion
• Shifts attention away from being human to issues
  of suffering and compassion.
• Weakness Focus on pain, rather than human
  possibility.

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Human possibility

• Donnelly Human nature is a social project and
  more than a presocial given.
• Treat a person like a human being and you will
  get a human being (Donnelly, p. 15).
• Rights constitute individuals (not communities).
• Rights construct free and equal citizens.

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From human nature to specific rights

• What is the content and essence of human nature?
  (Donnelly, p. 16/17)
• Ultimately, these philosophical theories will
  always be contentious (because they are based on
  assumptions).
• However, we have a remarkable normative consensus
  on the content of rights (expressed in the UDHR).
  
• A lack of foundations is not necessarily damaging
  to the idea of human rights.

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The Universal Declaration Model

• A Global Consensus?
• 30 min video on the creation of the Universal
  Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
• Donnelly, chapter 2 Rights are
• Universal and Individual (p. 23-27)
• Indivisible (p. 27-33)
• States have the exclusive responsibility to
  implement human rights at home (p. 33-37).

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What you should know

• What are human rights?
• Where do human rights come from (normative and
  empirical)?
• What are some justifications for upholding human
  rights?
• What are contemporary challenges to the global
  human rights movement?
• What is the Universal Declaration of Human
  Rights?