Human Rights: Importance, Laws, and Challenges

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Human rights
Human rights refers to the most basic freedoms and rights that must be accorded to all
human beings in the universe regardless of their ethnic, racial, nationality, language or religious
affiliation they are also referred to as practices and standards that are supportive and
complementary (Burson and Cantor 89). Although at times some of them can be restricted, it is
impossible for any individual or group of individuals to take the rights away completely. Moral
values such as equality, respect, independence, fairness and dignity are the foundations of these
human rights. On international dimensions, international humanitarian entities majorly the
United Nation (UN) have formulated laws relating to human rights which are enforced by
individual governments. However, for promotion and protection of these rights and fundamental
freedoms pertaining groups or individuals, certain obligations are set for governments to
undertake in certain acts or refrain from indulging in others. These has been resulted after
numerous incidents of human rights violation worldwide.
Protecting human rights has sequentially escalated from a regional issue to a global issue.
This has occurred following rampant cases of human rights violation reported in many nations.
One of the contributing factors towards this has been the constantly occurring civil wars in
various global regions (Mitchell 14). Following completion of the world war II and the
Holocaust, the United Nation had to bring into existence the Universal Declaration of Human

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Rights. By then, the world was desperate for peace and respect for human life. This declaration
therefore sought to ensure that no such actions jeopardizing human rights would ever come into
play again. In most scenarios often involving underdeveloped nations, political unrests result to
civil wars where the worst faces of humanity are experienced. Such cases therefore call for
global intervention whereby peace keeping forces are deployed in such nations on humanitarian
missions. Lack of democracy is another aspect that brings about violation of human rights.
Protecting these rights therefore call for intervention of global governing bodies that help solve
cases of anarchy and respect of human rights subsequently falls in line (Landman 46). Other
factors threatening human rights globally are; intensive racism, undermining the rights of
women, indigenous people and those of children. The world at large seeks to find solution to the
fore mentioned issues so as to completely eradicate cases of human rights violation.
Global governance is where political cooperation amongst various national actors exists
with a chief aim of tabling, negotiating and coming up with relevant solutions to issues that
affect more than one nation or region (Mendes 1). Protection of human rights have attracted
global attention following repeated cases of violation of these rights. Universal declaration of
human rights in 1948 was adopted by the United Nations following the World War II and the
Holocaust where high degrees of human rights violation were displayed. The primary aims of the
declaration were; creation of awareness amongst natives, protection of human rights,
benchmarking and educating individuals on their rights (United Nations 1-8). Different
umbrellas were therefore formulated by the UN to monitor the issue of human rights. They are
Human Rights Council which replaced the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights
Committee.

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Three categorical Human Right Laws have been formulated henceforth with each of the
laws being monitored after being enforced through different ways. The laws are; domestic law,
regional law and international law. Focusing on international law, it is the category that protects
global human rights (Kälin, Kunzli and Künzli 33). It is therefore composed of various
conventions and treaties which includes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a child
and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights amongst others. Coining and
implementation of treaties and conventions have resulted to enormous improvement in respect
for human rights in many nations.
Protection of human rights is an issue that requires global governance as it cuts across
many nations within various geographical and political regions. It is therefore upon leaders to
join hands and fight violation of human rights in unison. However, gaps in global governance
hinder effective tackling of this menace (Weiss and Thakur 251). Jurisdictional gap exists in
global governance and blocks most attempts to protect human rights. This gap exists whereby,
friendly nations or nations within the same region lack authoritative power to take actions aimed
at combating violation of human rights in other nations’ territories. The fact that a nation cannot
overrule another nation’s jurisdiction with the reason being ‘to conduct a humanitarian mission’
leaves the hands of countries willing to intercept tied.
Incentive gap is another hindering factor. Though there is demanding need for
cooperation amongst international actors in protecting human rights, the motivation to bring into
existence this cooperation lacks. Majority of national leaders are never willing to sit around the
table with their counterparts and seek help on protection of human rights as they view this as a
diminishing act. The incentive gap also brings into play economic potentials whereby majority
developing nations often being engulfed by issues of human rights violation lags behind