Human Rights and Their Lack of Enforcement

Recently, while attending the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid &
Development Conference, I had the privilege of hearing a representative
from the Red Cross speak on the topic of
human rights. After hearing his
presentation and a call for all state and non-state actors to abide by these
rights, I decided to explore this topic more in depth and how major
international organizations, principally the United Nations address these most
important and fundamental rights.

Human Rights is a relatively new
concept in the history of humanity; however, they form a portion of the
fundamental philosophies of the world’s religions. Apart from the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, which diminished
the power of the king, the 1675 Act of Habeas
Corpus, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “social contract” ideologies, not many
milestones have marked the development of this theory until 1945. In that year,
the Charter of the United Nations,
made reference to human rights without a clear definition; It wasn’t until 1948
when the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights delineated the basic core concepts of human rights. This
declaration eventually lead to the adoption of the 1973 Covenant of Political
Rights and the 1976 Covenant of Economic Rights, which highlighted the fact
that political and economic rights were equally as important as human rights.
Despite these United Nations documents appealing for the protection of human
rights, during the Cold War human rights were of little or no importance to the
majority of the member states. After the end of the Cold War however, the issue
of human rights caught the attention of the public and was finally ushered into
the spotlight of the United Nations.
Although human rights have been at the forefront of the United Nations
agenda since then, the reality is that very little has been done to establish
this issue as a genuine priority.

In reality, human rights are paid
much rhetoric, but there are no resources or respect for this issue within
major international organizations. Human
rights represent one-third of the United Nations system, yet not even one
percent of the budget is allocated for its implementation. In addition, there is a lack of international
commitment to support human rights and prevent such cases of genocide as
Srebrenica and Rwanda.

International law dictates that
human rights trump over state sovereignty. If the state is unwilling to provide
protection to its citizens, including its minorities, then it is the
responsibility of the international community to rectify such an occurrence by
whatever means necessary, including the use of military force. Therefore, human
rights are a principle that must be respected and protected; however, member
states in the United Nations are selective in condemning human rights
violations by other member states. This
selectivity or willingness to turn a blind eye on cases such as the
condemnation of human rights abuses in Myanmar and Darfur-Sudan, while the same
type of abuses are overlooked in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both countries of
geopolitical and economic importance to the Permanent Five members of the
Security Council. And, since only states are held accountable for human rights
violations, one has to wonder how the international community can hold
corporations accountable for the same type of violations.

It is true that one can criticize the United Nations for the
many human rights violations they have failed to act on, but the reality is the
United Nations cannot in fact, act without the consent of its member states.
The commitment of the United Nations in 1945 to bringing this relatively
obscure concept to light and the different (albeit
flawed) mechanisms it has created to try to assure implementation, such as
the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Council,
should not be minimized or overshadowed. What needs to occur in order for Human
Rights laws to become a reality is enforcement within the UN. Until such time, member states will continue
to fail to act on human rights abuses or agree on what events can be genuinely
considered genocide. Which only proves human rights enforcement is a principle
based solely on selectivity.