Last week Human Rights Day was celebrated around the world as well as in Turkey. Over the years slow but positive developments have continued on the codification of human rights in international law. It is certainly an impressive progress that we are talking about.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was merely a declaration without any legal power, stating the goodwill and moral commitment of the world’s nations. But now the international community has a series of conventions and protocols that legally bind the signatory countries concerning human rights. The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the most striking accomplishment of this process.
Human rights are generally based on moral values and philosophical preferences. As such they tend to be understood as abstract intellectual endeavors. Yet it is undeniable that respect for human rights has a more day-to-day outcome that includes security at the individual and national as well as global level. First, demands for human rights in its essence reflect the search for the physical and moral integrity of individuals. The idea of the inviolability of basic rights and freedoms aims at “securing” the individual as an independent and moral agent. Second, a working human rights regime constitutes one of the prerequisites for providing national security, that is, domestic peace based on a wide-ranging social consensus concerning the legitimacy of a political regime. Thus the maintenance of national security depends on the realization of individual security built on the respect for human rights. Third, individual and national security built through a human rights regime domestically is an indispensable part of global security. As such human rights are not only grounded on moral or philosophical arguments but also on a practical and pragmatic base.
The old notion of security was based on a concept giving priority to the protection of the state against external threats. Security was defined through penetration by outsiders. Now, crises that do not involve warfare and do not come from outside yet threaten the very wellbeing of nations are catching the attention of both policymakers and the public at large.
The revival of nationalism and micro-nationalism in the post-Cold War era has reinforced the need for international protection of human, and particularly minority, rights. What the rise of ethnic clashes has also shown was the interaction and interdependencies between domestic peace and regional/international security: Both secessionism and suppression of ethnic identities proved to be insecurity-generating policies for the international system.
Post Cold War developments have shown that human rights should be conceived as a necessity for strengthening national and international security and thus they are an asset, not a liability. As a result, the place of human rights in international politics has also been legitimized by an increasing understanding that the international protection and promotion of human rights contributes to national and international peace. Thus the debate now seems to be set in a way that human rights and national/international security are complementary concerns and objectives. One does not necessarily exclude the other; instead, both can be secured at the same time.
There is wide agreement today that human rights have become a global issue within which there has emerged a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections that involve but also transcend nation-states. As a result, violations of human rights in one country may create unprecedented consequences for other countries, peoples, and individuals. While territorial boundaries are becoming more penetrable, transnational implications of human rights violations turn out to be unavoidable. This adds to the source of tension among states. The most striking case that illustrates how human rights violations have transnational impacts and how they create security threats for other states is the massive flow of refugees. The cases of Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Iraq and recently Kosovo clearly illustrate that violations of human rights cannot be contained within national boundaries and that they have transnational implications which in the end provoke and necessitate regional or international interventions, further complicating a basically domestic problem.
While the respect for human rights enhances national security, states that are involved in systematic violations of human rights endanger not only national but also international peace and security.
This leads to an understanding that the search for global peace and security starts with improving human rights conditions at a domestic level since there exists a clear-cut linkage between national and international security. Human rights considerations thus give birth to a notion of global security. The link between individual, national and global security justifies concern about the fate of individuals everywhere as part of a search for global security.
Fifty years after the Universal Declaration it has become even clearer that peace requires respect for human rights at national and global levels.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was merely a declaration without any legal power, stating the goodwill and moral commitment of the world’s nations. But now the international community has a series of conventions and protocols that legally bind the signatory countries concerning human rights. The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the most striking accomplishment of this process.
Human rights are generally based on moral values and philosophical preferences. As such they tend to be understood as abstract intellectual endeavors. Yet it is undeniable that respect for human rights has a more day-to-day outcome that includes security at the individual and national as well as global level. First, demands for human rights in its essence reflect the search for the physical and moral integrity of individuals. The idea of the inviolability of basic rights and freedoms aims at “securing” the individual as an independent and moral agent. Second, a working human rights regime constitutes one of the prerequisites for providing national security, that is, domestic peace based on a wide-ranging social consensus concerning the legitimacy of a political regime. Thus the maintenance of national security depends on the realization of individual security built on the respect for human rights. Third, individual and national security built through a human rights regime domestically is an indispensable part of global security. As such human rights are not only grounded on moral or philosophical arguments but also on a practical and pragmatic base.
The old notion of security was based on a concept giving priority to the protection of the state against external threats. Security was defined through penetration by outsiders. Now, crises that do not involve warfare and do not come from outside yet threaten the very wellbeing of nations are catching the attention of both policymakers and the public at large.
The revival of nationalism and micro-nationalism in the post-Cold War era has reinforced the need for international protection of human, and particularly minority, rights. What the rise of ethnic clashes has also shown was the interaction and interdependencies between domestic peace and regional/international security: Both secessionism and suppression of ethnic identities proved to be insecurity-generating policies for the international system.
Post Cold War developments have shown that human rights should be conceived as a necessity for strengthening national and international security and thus they are an asset, not a liability. As a result, the place of human rights in international politics has also been legitimized by an increasing understanding that the international protection and promotion of human rights contributes to national and international peace. Thus the debate now seems to be set in a way that human rights and national/international security are complementary concerns and objectives. One does not necessarily exclude the other; instead, both can be secured at the same time.
There is wide agreement today that human rights have become a global issue within which there has emerged a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections that involve but also transcend nation-states. As a result, violations of human rights in one country may create unprecedented consequences for other countries, peoples, and individuals. While territorial boundaries are becoming more penetrable, transnational implications of human rights violations turn out to be unavoidable. This adds to the source of tension among states. The most striking case that illustrates how human rights violations have transnational impacts and how they create security threats for other states is the massive flow of refugees. The cases of Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Iraq and recently Kosovo clearly illustrate that violations of human rights cannot be contained within national boundaries and that they have transnational implications which in the end provoke and necessitate regional or international interventions, further complicating a basically domestic problem.
While the respect for human rights enhances national security, states that are involved in systematic violations of human rights endanger not only national but also international peace and security.
This leads to an understanding that the search for global peace and security starts with improving human rights conditions at a domestic level since there exists a clear-cut linkage between national and international security. Human rights considerations thus give birth to a notion of global security. The link between individual, national and global security justifies concern about the fate of individuals everywhere as part of a search for global security.
Fifty years after the Universal Declaration it has become even clearer that peace requires respect for human rights at national and global levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment