Human Rights Assignment 2022

Running Head: HUMAN RIGHTS 0
Human Rights
8/16/2019
Student’s Name

HUMAN RIGHTS 1
Conflicts among nations have been very common in the history of international relations.
World War II is a live example of the same that lasted from 1939 to 1945 (Rosenberg, 2019).
The war destroyed relationship among many nations and rises conflicts regarding rights and
interest of humans. Before this war too, a law over human rights and international peace was
required but becomes necessary afterward. To maintain subjective peace, the United Nations has
been developed at the end of World War II (hereinafter referred to as WW II) as a forum to
resolving conflict among nations. The organization made significant efforts to prevent the causes
of such a terrible war over the years. Development of human rights treaties counts as one of such
efforts. The horror of WW II reinforces demand of a bill of human rights, which would make
liable every state to identified equal rights to every individual in respect to life, religion,
language, property, and liberty (Facinghistory, 2019). To propel human rights onto the global
stage, United Nations has developed Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which
has been adopted by 56 different nations on 10 December 1948 (Hrlibrary, 2019). It is a
document that consists of various human rights that can be claimed by citizens of the countries
that have signed this document. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to state that UDHR is just a
document developed on the issue of human rights, whereas the reasoning of the development of
the same is somewhere related to the betterment of international relation after WW II. UN
developed UDHR to confirm that the way in which the government of the nation treats its citizen
is an international concern and not simply a domestic matter. Behind of the development of
UDHR, UN strongly believed that recognition of inalienable and equal rights of all members of
the human family and their inherent dignity is the foundation of peace, justice, and freedom in
the world.

HUMAN RIGHTS 2
To prevent situations like WW II, strong international relations are always required to be
there. To build such relations, reasons for disputes were required to be addressed. UDHR is a
significant step taken by the UN in direction of peacekeeping. UDHR is one of the most effective
tools that assist countries to divert their path from conflict to peace. After five years of adoption
of UDHR, Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady of the US during WW II, confirmed that human
rights are only about political or legal commitment. UDHR inspired many of policymakers to
make the world better. The document reflects that unsatisfied and frustrated individuals play
important in crucial wars. Providing human rights make them satisfied and no situations like
conflicts between world arise aftermath. Before the adoption of UDHR, states were following
different practices in respect to human right that created much dissatisfaction among individuals
and raised conflicts. There are a total of 30 articles in UDHR and almost every one of them starts
with the terminologies like everyone, on one or all (Youthforhumanrights, 2019). These articles
have created a powerful notion of global legitimacy. It means it clarifies to the states that their
actions, which breach international human rights standard cannot be treated as legitimate
(Fortman, 2011).
Now moving the discussion towards the importance of UDHR in maintaining
international relations, this is to state that it provides a universal set of rights to states. The
relation of human rights and international relations can be understood in the context of three
aspects namely realism, liberalism, which are mentioned, follow in detail:-
 Realism: - The realist can be understood as the one where rules are regularly broken.
Agreements last long unless they stop giving benefits to the parties. The realist of that
time believed that diplomacy of human rights is only a matter of talk (Dunne & Hanson,
(2009). They believed that in actual human rights are in the bottom in the list of national

HUMAN RIGHTS 3
policy goals for many of the states. This developed a dual standard where political
leaders ensure human rights at international level but do not provide the same at the
national level. Such situations were there which generated conflicts among individuals
and somewhere motivated WW II. Therefore, UDHR has been developed which now
makes compliance with human rights necessary for the nations and harmonize their
practices.
 Liberalism: - In international relations, Liberalism has always been a challenge to
realism. Different liberal thinking was there but the central idea was the same that
individual must have certain basic human rights. Liberals identify that when it comes to
implanting universal moral principles division of global humanity into different sovereign
states address particular problems. In such a situation, this issue promotes the idea to
develop an international human rights law to show respect towards human dignity and
human rights. Liberals view human rights as the most important factor in marinating
international relations.
If to summarize the role of human rights in international relations, this is to state that it
helps to attain justice. UDHR brought standard practices at the international level. Citizens of
different states are now able to seek human rights at the same level. In the development of
UDHR, the maker considered the objective of peace development and justice at the international
level. Each article of a declaration addressed one or more reasons that provoked WW II. To
understand the way in which UDHR contributes to develop international relations among states
by peacemaking, different articles are required to review. In the following section of this report,
different articles of UDHR and their reasoning will be discussed.