The Historical Background of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Introduction

Human rights are basic needs for standard survival in the everyday world. With globalization, human rights are categorized and implemented using different methods, such as treaties, non government organizations, laws/policies etc. These different methods allow countries around the world to come together to enforce basic human rights. Specific examples include non government organization the United Nations enforcing documents such as the universal declaration of human rights, united nations conventions;esstially treaties that prevent or enforce certain rights, claims, policies/laws etc. All of these documentations that are imposed (rights, treaties, etc) are possible due to the rapid effects of globalization that makes it possible for countries to work together to protect humanity basic rights.

Historical Elements of The Declaration

The universal declaration of human rights, is an international document that was finalized on the 10th of December in 1948 in Paris France. It promotes basic rights and freedoms to all that qualify. It was outlined by representatives in the UN from different legal and cultural backgrounds. The declaration is organized with articles. An example of an article is article 5 which states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. This is an example of the right to life and independence. They are 30 articles that essentially make up most of the document excluding the preamble that comes before the list of articles. The preamble describes what the declaration claims and how it came about. It sets out what the declaration should do and how it will protect humans. It was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly to; for the first time give fundamental human rights. The document is available in over 500 languages around the world for it to be available to everyone. The universal declaration starts by stating that “the inherent dignity of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. This notes that human rights are fundamental and to be enjoyed by everyone, irrespective of who they are or where they live. The Declaration includes political and civil rights. These include right to life, free speech, independence and privacy. The declaration also does not fail to protect educational, health and social security rights/freedoms. These fall under economic, social and cultural rights. The creation of the Human rights declaration was motivated from recent wars and humanitarian chaos that made the united nations realize that humanity needed a solid piece of documentation that many countries/representatives can sign so they come together as one to solve these issues. The human declaration was the first time that these countries consolidated to construct human rights. Australia is one of the nations that had significant impact on the development of the declaration. They were one of the eight nations that helped draft the charter. This was due to the influential leadership of australian politician Herbert vere evatt, the head of the United Nations delegation, which then he became president of the UN General Assembly that oversaw the adaptation of the declaration. Vere evatt was known for supporting civil liberties and the rights of the economically/socially disadvantaged. This was an advantage for the creation of the declaration.

Declaration and Globalization/Politics

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made possible due to the interconnected of countries which stems from globalization. Globalization is a multidimensional phenomenon that is not a new idea, but started to change so rapidly in recent years that made it seem different and new to internationally. Globalization has developed into making countries all around the world be in contact at all times for whatever reason needed for example to settle disputes, economic issues, humanitarian issues etc. Globalization does not necessarily mean it is a positive phenomenon for all countries. Globalization has also caused various types of harm to numerous countries. Many examples include non developed and/or third world countires that suffer from powerful, developed countires stealing land for agriculture, forced labour for multi-natinol corporations, child labour, degragtion of environment (e-junk) etc. Globalization also has mass effects on politics and how political leaders make decisions, how society functions based off laws, governance, polices etc. An example would be world trade and how different governments enforce it using different methods. The way politics function and how globalization works both connect with how and why the universal declaration of human rights was introduced and how it is still enforced/used differently around the world since the way countries work differ now with globalization being so rapid. After the world started to become so globalized starting in the nineteenth century, many humanitarian issues were rising, for example privatization, the declaration essentially was the first piece of official international documentation to bring forward standard human rights to everyone who lived in a state that it was obliged to, to protect them from the beginning of a globalized world.

Human Rights Overview

Human rights protect the dignity of each person against all states and a state that has too much power and torments or captures individuals, causes them to vanish, victimizes them based on their experience, skin colour, sex, sexuality, doesn't enable them to work, or makes it harder for them to get to land or credit since belong with a certain social “group”. These states have international responsibility to protect, guarantee and ensure these rights. Continuing with analyzing globalization with connection to global issues, human rights in a broad sense is one of the topics internationally challenging to maintain, enforce, regulate etc. Even with international documents, treaties, non-government organizations, etc human rights are difficult to implement due to the increasing number of situations in the new age of globalization. The many different globalization processes determine how human rights work. The processes included but not limited too are communication (global media), advancing technologies, global economy, global interdependence, and internationalized labour force. These processes of globalization condition the everyday life of people and country's governments to determine how they are overall shape and function. Such issues are determined from the global processes. How a state gives their citizens rights and how they are implemented depends. With said factors of globalization issues like forced labour, child labour and bad working condtions start to develop and much more. Countries, mostly the well developed ones go into these other countries usually low-developed/third world countries and take advantage of their bad economy which means bad wages/currency and hire people to work for them for low wages since that is the best form of decent wages in their country. A lot of multinational corporations and privatized companies do this. They also do not care for child labour as it is low cost to produce the goods as well as the countires themselves not inforcing human right laws properly. Another example would be human trafficking/sextrafficking. Traffickers take advantage of transparent borders, international communication, and political and economic problems as well as mass migrations of people. Displaced people, war victims, the poor, and those seeking opportunities in the west to improve the quality of their lives, have made trafficking into a booming business (Yale, global). The Declaration does not always have the power to protect countries even if they have abided to it. This is due to many international loopholes that states/nations have. International contracts like business ones sometimes contain clauses that manipulate the way human rights are protected in the way they are worded and such. With that being said, international organizations are also obstacles when enforcing human rights. They tend to prevent political measures to be taken to ensure rights. Developing countries that were in debt were at a disadvantage with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as they were told to take down their infrastructure for developing rural areas for food markets/agriculture. They take advantage of indebted states leaving governments to not have any power resulting in families struggling to find homes/decent infractruce. Private companies have come more common with globalization. The companies occasionally do not protect employee rights and often displaced employees without recognized self rights. An example would be a private mining company invading peoples living space and forcing them to settle elsewhere without compensation. Trade unions are not able to do much as international companies/organizations are rarely brought to justice/ taken to court. Corruption of many states also places a large part in human rights. Iran is one of the members who signed the universal declaration of human rights, yet they fail in many areas to give their citizens basic human rights. Women are forced to cover up, if not they will be arrested, religion is pressed upon their citizens. The United Nations fail to invade Iran’s harsh ideologies to have fair, well human protected society. The UN will sometimes impede sanctions on nations that are not following the rules that they have agreed too. This most of the time does not work as they still continue to do what they do. States may sometimes over time start to become weak. They fall into wars, conflicts, environmental issues. When this happens the government becomes weak. Civil wars started by civilians are an example. They have little control on how their citizens act, as well as their humanity surrounding. This also means they have little funds to provide protected human rights. A Lot of these issues come to light due to non government organizations, political/human activists broadcasting them to the public.

Overall the Universal Declaration of Human Rights started the movement of basic human rights to be implemented by all states to all human beings all around the world. It was the first piece of official documentation recognized by most countries internationally to be signed and guaranteed and respected to all. The Declaration was a huge step forward in the creation of international law as well as demolishing many acts of humanitarian hardship such as warfare due to this peace agreement. The declaration also does have its cons as human rights are still being violated by many around the world due to poor factors. The cons of human rights seem to exist all around the world due to rapid globalism. The global processes have navigated their way into creating phenomenons that have caused rapid global issues for humans.